Ms Alice Coughlan:

I hear lawyers talking about this, and it is no wonder none of the survivors are coming through. They would find it very intimidating. It took me a week and I had to go back within myself. This my first time speaking about all this. My daughter knows. I have spoken to my daughter who was adopted and I have got back to her. The point I am making is about actually not knowing. You spend your life hoping that your child who was adopted was happy and that you have given her a better life.

I will give some information now, and this might be hurtful to everybody. I was told I would not be getting my daughter. I was told I could agree to an adoption. I walked in, I signed a page and I was given a new name. You would not even be given that in Portlaoise or Mountjoy prisons if you were a murderer. I am not going to go into much of it, but I was given a separate name and told if I did not agree to adoption, then my daughter or my son - my child - would be in an institution until he or she was at least 16 years old. Would that be called a free choice?