Dear Seantor Bacik - I'm pleased to note your agreement with Senator van Turnhout's view that "we must consider the rights of adopted children into the future and the right to information and tracing". I have to disgree however on your assertion that "Minister Frances Fitzgerald and the Department are doing a great deal of work on that". Minister Frances Fitzgerald may be doing work on this issue but this work, which includes the Attourney General, is to ensure that the status quo of closed, incomplete, falsified records prevails for the 60,000+ adopted people who are desperately seeking information NO LONGER JUST ON THEIR ORIGINS, BUT INCREASINGLY ON THE ILLEGALITIES OF THEIR ADOPTIONS. The notion that tens of thousands of adoption records would be open to public scrutiny, thus revealing the extent of the state funded forced adoption industry here is anathema to this govt & to all previous Irish govts dating back to the early 90's when stories of criminality first emerged. Minister Frances Fitzgerald has already said that she "cannot" do anything about open adoption records for those of us already adopted in Ireland so her ground-breaking legislation will facilitate a handful of Irish adopted people circa 2032 upon reaching their 18th birthdays.
I would also disagree that "Work has begun on bringing the records together to ensure that when the children are adults they will be entitled to the information". If you are referring to the records of the mainly adult, domestically adopted Irish people, their records have never been in a more precarious state, spread as they are over many physical sites and incredibly even owned by private individuals without any oversight or monitoring by the Adoption Authority of Ireland - the so-called body of excellence for adoption in Ireland.
If you are referring to the records of the hundreds of children (some now adult) adopted to Ireland from overseas since 1990, their records are not even held in this country but rather are supposed to safe-guarded in their country of origin, so we have no control over those records. When you stop to consider that this state (pre-Hague) operated a cowboy system of ICA, the paperwork was as incomplete & falsified as suited the early traffickers, so there is little chance of any child adopted from overseas ever discovering their origins. Add to that, the fact that the Index to the Register of Foreign Adopters is a closed, secret register, there is almost zero chance of any mother, tricked out of her child, ever discovering the truth, even if she could raise the airfare to travel to Ireland.
I am pleased that you pointed out the parallels between Ireland's historic lack of supports for single parents & the equivalent lack of supports in countries from which we (questionably - I would argue) accept children for adoption.
I hope that you continue to draw on your experiences with survivors of industrial schools etc who as children were removed from their families of origin for reasons of poverty, religion, marital status etc. We have much to learn from these sundered families but also much to learn from those children who were taken by the state & church (in concert) for adoption rather than allow their own families to raise them.
Just because someone was taken for adoption rather than for a life in an institution, does not take away the fact that they were denied their basic human right to be brought up by their own parents, family, or community & within their own culture.
As the Rev Keith Griffith said "Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful". We must be ever mindful that govt supported export of children from the developing world to the developed world can quickly descend into highly sophisticated human trafficking & the Irish state should be seen to do all it can to prevent that.
Whilst I agree with your comment that "As a result (of irish state support for single parents), the rate of internal adoption has dropped to almost nothing", it does not take into account the significant numbers of single & married parents in the developing world, who like the Philomenas of yesteryear are often tricked out of their children (as witnessed in Mexico in Dec 2012). In my opinion, it is dangerously disingenuous of Irish legislators to ignore the circumstances in which foreign children become available for adoption and I would urge Irish legislators to start thinking of children from certain sending countries in the same terms as "blood diamonds" & that for me "is the bigger context in which this legislation is being introduced".
Susan Lohan
Posted on 20 Mar 2014 4:33 pm
Dear Seantor Bacik - I'm pleased to note your agreement with Senator van Turnhout's view that "we must consider the rights of adopted children into the future and the right to information and tracing". I have to disgree however on your assertion that "Minister Frances Fitzgerald and the Department are doing a great deal of work on that". Minister Frances Fitzgerald may be doing work on this issue but this work, which includes the Attourney General, is to ensure that the status quo of closed, incomplete, falsified records prevails for the 60,000+ adopted people who are desperately seeking information NO LONGER JUST ON THEIR ORIGINS, BUT INCREASINGLY ON THE ILLEGALITIES OF THEIR ADOPTIONS. The notion that tens of thousands of adoption records would be open to public scrutiny, thus revealing the extent of the state funded forced adoption industry here is anathema to this govt & to all previous Irish govts dating back to the early 90's when stories of criminality first emerged. Minister Frances Fitzgerald has already said that she "cannot" do anything about open adoption records for those of us already adopted in Ireland so her ground-breaking legislation will facilitate a handful of Irish adopted people circa 2032 upon reaching their 18th birthdays.
I would also disagree that "Work has begun on bringing the records together to ensure that when the children are adults they will be entitled to the information". If you are referring to the records of the mainly adult, domestically adopted Irish people, their records have never been in a more precarious state, spread as they are over many physical sites and incredibly even owned by private individuals without any oversight or monitoring by the Adoption Authority of Ireland - the so-called body of excellence for adoption in Ireland.
If you are referring to the records of the hundreds of children (some now adult) adopted to Ireland from overseas since 1990, their records are not even held in this country but rather are supposed to safe-guarded in their country of origin, so we have no control over those records. When you stop to consider that this state (pre-Hague) operated a cowboy system of ICA, the paperwork was as incomplete & falsified as suited the early traffickers, so there is little chance of any child adopted from overseas ever discovering their origins. Add to that, the fact that the Index to the Register of Foreign Adopters is a closed, secret register, there is almost zero chance of any mother, tricked out of her child, ever discovering the truth, even if she could raise the airfare to travel to Ireland.
I am pleased that you pointed out the parallels between Ireland's historic lack of supports for single parents & the equivalent lack of supports in countries from which we (questionably - I would argue) accept children for adoption.
I hope that you continue to draw on your experiences with survivors of industrial schools etc who as children were removed from their families of origin for reasons of poverty, religion, marital status etc. We have much to learn from these sundered families but also much to learn from those children who were taken by the state & church (in concert) for adoption rather than allow their own families to raise them.
Just because someone was taken for adoption rather than for a life in an institution, does not take away the fact that they were denied their basic human right to be brought up by their own parents, family, or community & within their own culture.
As the Rev Keith Griffith said "Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful". We must be ever mindful that govt supported export of children from the developing world to the developed world can quickly descend into highly sophisticated human trafficking & the Irish state should be seen to do all it can to prevent that.
Whilst I agree with your comment that "As a result (of irish state support for single parents), the rate of internal adoption has dropped to almost nothing", it does not take into account the significant numbers of single & married parents in the developing world, who like the Philomenas of yesteryear are often tricked out of their children (as witnessed in Mexico in Dec 2012). In my opinion, it is dangerously disingenuous of Irish legislators to ignore the circumstances in which foreign children become available for adoption and I would urge Irish legislators to start thinking of children from certain sending countries in the same terms as "blood diamonds" & that for me "is the bigger context in which this legislation is being introduced".