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

We are discussing a Bill which would give the right of all persons to a birth certificate, which would mean that adopted persons in this State would have the right to their birth certificates. That is clear, straightforward and reverses an injustice that has been visited upon people for many years. This legislation should be passed, and we will vote wholeheartedly in support of it.

The other issue at stake today is being discussed by the Cabinet. It is the question of an inquiry into illegal adoptions in this State. There are indications that there may have been as many as 20,000 illegal adoptions in this country. We are not for delaying an inquiry for six months, as the Minister suggests. We are for that being agreed today. We are for it being done with sensitivity to survivors but we think that inquiry should get the green light today. In his book, Banished Babies, Mike Milotte says that in the 1950s Ireland was a centre for illegal baby trafficking. He quotes a civil servant who talks about Ireland being a hunting ground with people coming into the country looking for babies to adopt. The Irish Timesran an article in 1951 in which it was stated that in the previous year almost 500 babies had been flown out from Shannon Airport for adoption. A German newspaper at the time said that the price being paid for these babies was $3,000, approximately €24,000 in today's money. There was outrage about this article among sections of Ireland's diplomatic corps and contact was made with the Department to raise the idea of legal action against the newspaper.

The diplomats were very firmly told there would not be a basis for the legal action because what the German newspaper had printed was largely true. It is reckoned that approximately 15% of these illegal adoptions were organised from mother and baby homes. The commission of inquiry said there was no proof as to whether this was or was not the case. This is a matter on which we need more information.

An inquiry needs to shine a spotlight on what happened, on what was known at the highest political levels in society and on the idea that the State, the Government and Ministers of the day were unaware of illegal adoption practices when hundreds of babies were being flown out of Shannon Airport and when the son of a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, who later became President, was at the heart of these events. Of course, Éamon de Valera Jnr. did not sell babies but he charged fees for the work he did in setting up adoptions that were illegal. That should be a matter for investigation and inquiry as part of a wider picture that answers the question about the potentially 20,000 illegal adoptions which took place in this State through the years.

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