Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We are discussing something that was an illegal practice. It is was the falsification of birth certificates. To my knowledge, only one person has ever been prosecuted for this crime in the history of the State, a woman named Mrs. Keating who ran an illegal adoption agency or racket from her private nursing home, St. Rita's, in Ranelagh. Her activities were first brought to the attention of the gardaí in 1954, yet she was not prosecuted until 1964, ten years later. She was sentenced to the probation Act. After her sentencing, a priest went to visit the then Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, to plead her case so that she would not lose her nursing home licence. While he waited in the corridor to see the Taoiseach, he bumped into the Minister for Agriculture, Charles Haughey, who asked what his business was. When the priest told him, Haughey laughingly replied that "half the babies born in St. Rita's were fathered by members of the Dáil".

As Mike Milotte, reporting this quote, observed in a recent article:

A gross exaggeration, no doubt, but a timely reminder that for every crisis pregnancy there was a putative father in the wings, often men in positions of authority, employers, respectable members of society, other women’s husbands, priests even, and, yes, politicians – all of them equally protected from disclosure by the practice of falsifying birth records.

Is it any wonder it has taken so long for the State to face up to the truth?

It is a point well made. It is often suggested that this is something that was done as a favour to the woman or to the child, but the protection of men, including powerful and wealthy men, was also behind this particular racket.

This debate is situated within a wider debate of church-State relations and the historical injustices to women. The recent referendum was passed by a landslide. People were repelled by the misogyny of the No side, but on top of misogyny there was also hypocrisy in that it could be seen that it was never a question of loving both but rather of loving neither when it came to women and their children born out of wedlock. This is another case which makes a power argument in favour of the separation of church and State.

I think it was yesterday when I engaged with the Minister in the House on this issue. I asked her if this issue of hundreds, and potentially thousands, of illegal adoptions had been brought to the Department's attention in 2011 and again in 2013. I pointed out that the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, assured the Dáil that all adoptions in the State since 1952 had been in accordance with the law, namely, the Adoption Act 1952 and subsequent legislation. This position was restated, not once but twice, by the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, when he took over the reins in the Department of Justice and Equality. That is false. It was not the case.

The other day, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, told me there was not absolute proof in 2013. If the proof was not absolute, there were enough strong clues to warrant a full audit of all files in the State. That did not happen, however, and it is still not on the Minister's agenda. She spoke of a sample audit.

I put it to the Minister that, on the grounds of the health of the people involved and their records alone, that is not sufficient. There needs to be a full audit backed up with the proper resources for Tusla in terms of money and manpower to make sure we get to the bottom of this for once and for all.

See this speech in context