Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Following on from Senator Seery Kearney's comments, including the term "illegal" in the legislation would set a really high bar. All of us would love to see people being held to account for all of these wrongs. I do not believe anybody in this House would say that someone who illegally registered births should not be held accountable.

Amendment No. 14 proposes a list of cases that would be considered an illegal adoption. This would exclude an awful lot of the people involved because so many of those illegally registered were not the subject of an adoption order. They were never adopted. If we put in this amendment regarding illegal adoption, we would be excluding these people because an adoption did not happen. These people were not adopted. They were illegally registered. It would be misguided to accept this amendment and to include the term "illegal adoption". There were many possible reasons for illegal adoptions. They may have involved coercion or otherwise been carried out without consent but adoption orders were completed so they are considered adoptions. This amendment would conflate two different things: adoptions that were possibly illegal and illegal registrations. It is very important to clarify that these two things are separate. This amendment would combine two separate issues. It is very important to clarify that illegally registered children were not adopted.