Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious issue. I am aware an "RTÉ Investigates" programme due to air this evening will focus on the St. Patrick's Guild illegal birth registrations. The illegality of what took place is shocking, particularly for those affected. I refer to the trauma, anguish and hurt that people are now experiencing as a result of this unacceptable practice. What happened was wrong, plain and simple, and completely unacceptable. Enormous trauma has been placed on people as a result of this illegality.

As the Deputy is aware, the Government is committed to introducing information and tracing legislation as a priority. The people involved in this particular issue, who are the victims here, were approached by Tusla and essentially told they are not who they thought they were and their parents are not those who they thought they were. They do not know who they are or who their parents are and they cannot get access to the most basic information any human being should have access to. The priority has to be information and tracing legislation. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is working on that with the Office of the Attorney General to provide comprehensive legislation which will provide access to birth information, including the birth certificate, for individuals and for anyone who has a question about their identity and, indeed, origins.

More broadly, the Minister has also established an interdepartmental working group to identify the issues that have now arisen for many of the affected victims and individuals, and to propose solutions for them. Those solutions will then form the basis of consultation with those affected by these illegal birth registrations.

The Deputy knows that a sampling review into illegal birth registrations was commissioned in 2018 by the then Government to identify whether there were markers on files to indicate a practice of illegal birth registrations in the records of other adoption agencies and similar institutions like those that were found on the St. Patrick's Guild files. The then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs appointed an independent reviewer to oversee the process. The publication of the sampling review had to await the final report of the mother and baby homes commission as it encroached on its work. Now that the commission has published its report, it is intended to publish the sampling review shortly. The Minister will be bringing a memo to the Government about the sampling review next week. That is the intended timeline for that.

The files at St. Patrick's were unique insofar as there were markers on the files indicating that children were adopted from birth. As we know, social workers from Tusla are continuing the work of informing people that their births were illegally registered, arising from markers found in the St. Patrick's Guild files. The number of confirmed cases, as the Deputy said, has increased from 126 to 151 since the announcement in May 2018.

I understand that one of the primary issues that will be raised in the programme this evening is the lack of information for the individuals in question and the difficulties they face in accessing records. Understandable anger and frustration are clearly being felt. We are very committed, as a matter of urgency, to bringing in comprehensive legislation on information and tracing to deal with this issue once and for all.

See this speech in context