Ms Susan Lohan:

Fine, although the complaints made about her are in the public domain. In any case, I will withdraw her name. We spoke at length with several former Ministers about the agency, including Mary Hanafin and Brian Lenihan. We also spoke with a former CEO of the then Adoption Board. However, people kept being sent back to the agency to deal with them as if it were a competent body.

It has occurred to us over the years that the Adoption Authority has failed utterly in its efforts to monitor and observe the practices of adoption agencies. I was involved in an advisory group that constructed a handbook on how to deal with inquiries from people tracing relatives, be they adopted people or natural parents. That framework document was never adopted and people are still being sent back to these agencies, about whom serious questions, in terms of propriety, arise. The Adoption Authority is failing adopted people and natural parents in this regard.