Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry to ruin the Taoiseach's merriment but just over two weeks ago, I received a letter from an older lady who lives down the country. She had never written to a politician previously but was desperately seeking help and, with her permission, I am raising her case in the Chamber today because she represents thousands of other people who are suffering a similar torment. More importantly, I am raising it because the Taoiseach has the ability to sort out this issue. She told me that she was trying to locate her daughter, who had been born to her in Castlepollard mother and baby home in 1966 and to whose adoption she had never consented. She had been sick after the birth and was in bed on the morning of St. Patrick's Day, when her child was a couple of months old. She was told by the priest and the matron that the child had been adopted and was told to get up and go to mass. No papers were signed and no permission was given. This woman eventually moved on with her life, had four other children and got married. For the past 30 years, she has been trying to find her daughter. She contacted the Sacred Heart nun Sister Sarto, who was the order's search and trace co-ordinator. There were letters, telephone calls, meetings and excuses to the effect that her letter was not received or the order did not have the information. She was told her daughter's adoptive family did not wish to know her or to have anything to do with their. Her request became more urgent when both she and one of her other children twice developed cancer and she wanted her daughter to be aware of her medical history. Even that did not help and she was begging for assistance.

I contacted the Adoption Rights Alliance, which is a voluntary organisation of activists and campaigners, many of whom were born in mother and baby homes and themselves were adopted, and with which I had worked on such cases previously. Last Friday, I received a call from Mr. Paul Redmond of Adoption Rights Now! to tell me that the organisation had found and spoken to her daughter, who was absolutely delighted and was looking forward to meeting her mother. A 30-year search was ended within ten days because of a random correspondence with a Deputy. While being absolutely glad for those concerned, I was boiling mad because the Adoption Rights Alliance did not find that information by chance. This case proves positively that the information was always there but individuals and organisations consciously and deliberately withheld it from those who had a right to know. That is a crime and it is landing on top of the other crime that not only was that child illegally adopted, but it also was found out that the birth had been registered as a legal adoption, which was not the case.

There is no reason this should have happened or why this woman should have been obliged to endure such things. Unfortunately, however, there are thousands of others going through the same thing. In reply to a parliamentary question earlier this year, the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, confirmed to me that 25,000 files from the Sacred Heart mother and baby homes were in the hands of the Health Service Executive, HSE, in Glanmire, County Cork. Given the time importance in this regard, will the Taoiseach meet the Adoption Rights Alliance, which has proven its credibility and credentials in this matter, to discuss the establishment of an emergency task force to enable the thousands of people searching for their basic human right to an identity to secure it?

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