Ms Susan Lohan:

I am the co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance. We formed in 2009 in response to a proposal by a former Minister of State with responsibility for children, Mr. Barry Andrews, to consolidate all the existing legislation. We were quite astonished to discover that the Bill was not to include so much as an additional full stop in the form of legislation on information and tracing for adopted people, almost 60 years after the introduction of adoption into Ireland. The group was founded by me and Ms Claire McGettrick. Shortly afterwards, we were joined by Mari Steed, our US co-ordinator. Interestingly, Ms Steed is probably one of Ireland's first intercountry adoptees because she was one of the 2,000 children trafficked from Ireland to the United States for adoption. Therefore, we have some valuable insight into the whole experience from her. We can learn from some of her observations.