Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

I realise how difficult and complicated this issue is but I am not fully sure we are advancing it as we continue to discuss it. My query is not about cases where no records exist. It is about cases where records exist but may not be in the hands of the Adoption Authority of Ireland or under the remit of the HSE. We are trying to grapple with a scenario where it has been acknowledged that adoptions have been falsely registered and that the information exists somewhere. It is a question of getting access to those records and safeguarding them. We are a long way from that. We should remind ourselves that we are talking about people's personal identities, which is very important.

I do not accept the figure of 99 people which the Minister again quoted in her response. I believe that figure emerged from a newspaper story, that the Adoption Authority of Ireland examined only its own records and that the majority of false births that were registered, which the Minister has acknowledged, were done to arrange illegal adoptions and are, therefore, held by adoption agencies. The Adoption Authority of Ireland has refused to inspect those documents or to copy them. There needs to be an intervention from the Minister to ensure all existing records are brought together under some comprehensive remit. If the HSE rather than the Adoption Authority of Ireland is given that remit, it needs to be resourced to carry it out. It has not been to date.

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