Ms Terri Harrison:

The Senator asked what she can do to help and mentioned my mistrust of authority. They took that out of me. I make no apology for that. To trust in your own society and to lose that is somewhat horrifying. I wish they would acknowledge what happened in the agreement of legalising everything they did and getting paid for our care, which did not happen, and the imprisonment of being an expectant mum outside the licence of marriage. I agree with Ms Mac Manus that it is essential more truth is acknowledged. The more that is acknowledged, the more we can heal as a society. Trans-generational trauma is very real and we are only a little island. It is going to affect our society and culture for years to come.

I had three children after my firstborn son, Niall. Niall John Kiernan only exists on paper. Niall John Kiernan only exists for me. The man he is today at 48 years of age goes by a different name and that was never my choice. Our journey, good, bad or indifferent was supposed to be ours and ours alone, including his daddy. DNA testing was not out back then. Most fathers would never have been allowed on the birth certificate because the clergy registered your child. On my son's birth certificate it says the residence is 384, Navan Road. There is not a whisper of St. Patrick's, not a whisper of the nun who signed it Elizabeth, not Sister Elizabeth. All of these institutions all around Ireland and all these same agencies, not one of them adhered to the Adoption Act 1952, which I only found out about eight years ago. My son was 40 years of age when I found out the legal rights I had to keeping my son, even in 1973. Therefore it must be exposed and must be acknowledged. It must be allowed to be open and transparent and communicated to all. Our children may suffer as adults, as fathers, as grandfathers or grandmothers. Even today it is a third generation it is going to spill out on to, this huge void, this awfulness of not knowing anything. It is barbaric actually.

We are 50 years behind Australia. We are so many years behind so many countries in the same world. Why is that? I ask why we are so afraid to expose a church, I think it is called the Roman Catholic Church. I am not a Catholic by the way. I know it ran our State for years. Is this what is wrong? Are our leaders today so profoundly Catholic before they are Irish? I often wonder about that myself because I am an Irish woman, very badly wronged, and my son is an Irish man but I am not Catholic Irish. I am just Irish per se. I wish to God - that is just a figure of speech - I wish for somebody somewhere who has access, who has the authority, who has the right, to stand up and say do you know what, this has been going on for 70 years. I have run support groups for women for 22 years. One of the women, Helen, is 87 years of age. Her son is 70 years of age. She is still waiting on somebody to do something. It just has to stop. If we want a future in this country of a healthy culture, an open society and to really reclaim our Irishness we need to go forward with truth and transparency for all.