Ms Alice Coughlan:

I met my daughter and found out things I saw on the list back from the Government through freedom of information. So much stuff was not included. My daughter's adoptive mother had written to the agency for five years, giving details of how my daughter was doing. I never have received that and even in the information I got from them, none of that was included. My daughter went in when she was 19 and was going to Australia. The Catholic Protection & Rescue Society of Ireland told her it was useless and there was no way she would ever be meeting me and that was it. It told her it did not matter, she would not be meeting me and it did not make a difference. There were so many things.

When I got my papers, or some of my papers, from the Catholic protection society, I was 18 on one page; 19 on another and 21 on the other. My baby was born in St. Finbarr's Hospital, which she was, but my baby was also born in Bessborough. It was said the social worker who was in charge of the adoption came down to Cork to meet me - which never happened. I met her one day, when the adoption papers were being signed. One can be terribly naive. I genuinely believed this was my choice. My daughter, at this stage, would be brought up in an institution, rented or boarded out, or whatever you like to call it and would have a horrendous life for her first 17 years, or I could give her some form of life. I had to believe the person who wanted to adopt really wanted a child to love and cherish.

This social worker signed her name to say she knew me very well, had met me on more than one occasion and happened to be very well known to me. I never met the woman until five minutes before I walked from South Anne Street to Dawson Street to sign a paper. Yet, I am expected to believe the truth and everything else is in these papers which my daughter might read or receive. These nuns, and I am sorry to call them that, are writing out details and without being rude, there are three downright lies by social workers.

I was in hospital because they left half the afterbirth in me. I am not going to go into all of that but they actually wrote in one of my letters that they knew I was in hospital with a kidney infection. Everything that was on the page - this is a better way of saying it - was half-truths, if that makes sense. They were half-truths. And that is what I got.