Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Following the discovery of clear evidence of illegal birth registrations in the St. Patrick's Guild records, I directed that an analysis of adoption records be carried out to establish whether there is sufficient reliable evidence of the practice of illegal registration that can be extracted from the records of adoption agencies.

The analysis of records is being carried out by Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland, AAI, and is overseen by an independent reviewer who is a former deputy director of social services in Northern Ireland. Representatives from other agencies and the reviewer have met regularly since June. The work to date has focused on agreeing the sampling methodology in consultation with a statistician, addressing the data protection issues, identifying the specific records to be reviewed and agreeing a template to be applied by social workers reviewing the records.

There are an estimated 150,000 adoption records in existence and approximately 100,000 of these are currently in the custody of the State, either in the form of Tusla or the Adoption Authority of Ireland. The review is focused on those records and a targeted sampling exercise is being carried out in the first instance owing to the volume of records involved. This targeted review will help to establish the extent of usable information that can be found in these historical records. The review will provide information to assist me in identifying more fully the scale of illegal birth registrations and in determining any necessary next steps. Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland are working hard to extract and examine the records. This is a very complex task, and issues have arisen concerning data protection and the general data protection regulation, GDPR. These issues mean that the estimated timeline for the independent reviewer's report is now mid-December.

I want to get to the truth. The further analysis which has commenced, together with the ongoing work of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, will be extremely important in helping us to shape the further steps to be taken.

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