“The sense that I have from people that have been affected by this is they’re not looking for money from the taxpayer, they’re not looking for retribution.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has stated that it is “far too early” to be thinking of DNA tests or redress schemes for those affected by the St. Patrick’s Guild adoption scandal.
On Tuesday, the news broke that as many as 79 people placed for adoption in St. Patrick’s Guild may not know that they are adopted due to incorrect registrations.
Child and Family Agency Tusla identified 126 cases where births were deliberately incorrectly registered between 1946 and 1969 in cases where the adoptive parents of the child were recorded as the birth parents.
The Taoiseach was speaking on Wednesday morning at the launch of the €4 billion Project Ireland 2040 funds for rural development, urban regeneration, climate action and innovation.
“I think what’s going to happen is that we are going to open another dark chapter in our history,” said Varadkar upon addressing the adoption issue.
“These are events that happened between 50 and 70 years ago, and I know some people will say that what’s in the past should be left in the past, and perhaps we shouldn’t open this can of worms in many ways, but we’ve taken a different view as a government.
“We have, now, very clear evidence that there were illegal registrations in St. Patrick’s Guild, and we feel that we have to share that information with the people who were affected,” he added.
Varadkar noted that the government’s focus is now on ensuring that the people affected by the adoption registrations are given access to the information that they require.
“I think it’s far too early to be talking about things like DNA tests or redress schemes,” he offered.
“The sense that I have from people that have been affected by this is they’re not looking for money from the taxpayer, they’re not looking for retribution. They’re looking for information about their identities, and they want to know who they are.
“They want to know what their birth story is, and our focus absolutely has to be around that, and giving people the information that they should have always had about their own identities. That has to be the priority in terms of the work we do now, and in terms of the resources that we’re going to have to put in,” concluded Varadkar.
The Adoption Rights Alliance, meanwhile, has called for an investigation into what they regard as illegal adoptions.
Speaking to Newstalk on Wednesday, the ARA said the following:
“In ARA’s experience, illegal adoptions were also facilitated by private homes or individuals, as well as the registered Adoption Societies.
“In fact, ARA and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) have compiled a list of 182 institutions, agencies and individuals that were involved with unmarried mothers and their children.
“This list includes 57 private homes or facilitators, and the location of the records associated with these institutions remains unknown.”
Furthermore, in 2014 the then acting-CEO of the ARA, Kiernan Gildea, said that there may be ‘many thousands’ of ‘illegal registrations.’
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