Written Answers. - National Archives' Adoption Files.
Frances Fitzgerald
Question:
37
Ms F. Fitzgerald
asked the
Tánaiste
and Minister for Foreign Affairs what information, if any, he has regarding the intermediary bodies and organisations who handled adoptions in respect of the 1,500 adoption files located at the National Archives; and if he will name these bodies.
[5944/96]
Frances Fitzgerald
Question:
38
Ms F. Fitzgerald
asked the
Tánaiste
and Minister for Foreign Affairs the status of the guardians who made applications for the passports in respect of the 1,500 adoption files located at the National Archives.
[5945/96]
Frances Fitzgerald
Question:
39
Ms F. Fitzgerald
asked the
Tánaiste
and Minister for Foreign Affairs the form of the inquiry which he has initiated into the finding of 1,500 adoption files at the National Archives.
[5946/96]
Frances Fitzgerald
Question:
40
Ms F. Fitzgerald
asked the
Tánaiste
and Minister for Foreign Affairs the circumstances under which the birth parents made their declarations in respect of the 1,500 adoption files located at the National Archives; and the way in which these declarations were obtained.
[5947/96]
I intend to take Questions Nos. 37 to 40 together.
When I became aware last week that my Department's archival material contained information on cases of Irish children sent to be adopted abroad. I instituted an inquiry to ascertain the extent of that information. Most of the files relate to adoptions in the US but there is also mention of other destinations such as Britain, Canada and South Africa. Until the material, which is in some 1,800 files, is researched in detail it will not be possible to say definitively how many adoptions were involved.
What has been established at this stage is that a series of files dealing, inter alia, with the general question of adoption was opened in 1945, that, around 1950, files on individual cases began to be opened, that the majority of the adoptions abroad appear to have taken place in the 1950s and that the last ones appear to have been in the early 1970s. About 1,500 files relating to the years up to and including 1963 are in the National Archives and the remainder are in my Department. The Passport Office, separately, has records on microfiche of passports issued to the children concerned. Like all other files about passport applicants prior to 1979, the Passport Office files about children adopted abroad were destroyed after a certain period.
The legal position with regard to access to the information in these files is being considered at present. My Department is also consulting the Department of Health given that Department's central responsibility in relation to adoptions. I hope that a way will be found to make the information available to the people concerned with the permission of those to whom it directly relates.
The role of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the matter of adoptions was related to the issuing of passports to the children involved. In this context the Department required documentation on the suitability of the prospective adoptive parents and proof that the mothers and guardians had given their consent to the children travelling abroad to be legally adopted.
The Catholic Social Welfare Bureau in Dublin liaised with this Department and with the Catholic Charities Organisation in the US about the standards to be met by adoptive parents and the paperwork to be presented to us by the convents and orphanages as evidence of that when applying for passports for the children. The Catholic Charities Organisation had branches throughout the US and the Department required that it be approved as a child placing agency under the law of the State in which each adoptive couple resided.
Most of the children seem to have been under the care of religious sisters in adoption societies throughout the country and their legal guardians were the religious sisters in charge of those institutions into whose care their mothers had surrendered them.
The files we have looked at contain little or no information about the circumstances in which the mothers made their sworn statements surrendering the children nor the way in which those statements were obtained.
A list of approved adoption societies made available by the Department in response to inquiries from abroad in 1962 on the adoption of Irish children contained the following names, but there may have been others:
Catholic Protection and Rescue Society of Ireland, 30 South Anne Street, Dublin.
Cork Catholic Women's Aid Society, 14 Brown Street, Cork.
Limerick Catholic Adoption Society, 71 O'Connell Street, Limerick.
Rotunda Girls' Society, 82 Marlborough Street, Dublin.
Sacred Heart Convent, Bessboro', Cork.
Sacred Heart Convent, Castlepollard, County Westmeath.
St. Nicholas Adoption Society, 21 Ard Na Mara, Salthill, Galway.
Sacred Heart Home, 40 Drumcondra Road, Dublin.
St. Brigid's Orphanage, 46 Eccles Street, Dublin.
St. Clare's Convent, Stamullen, County Meath.
St. Louise's Adoption Society, St. Patrick's Home, Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin.
St. Mura's Nursery, Fahan, County Donegal.
St. Attracta's Adoption Society, Summerhill Convent, Athlone.
St. Patrick's Guild, 50 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin.
Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, County Tipperary.
The Cork Protestant Adoption Society, 35 Grand Parade, Cork.
The Protestant Adoption Society, 39 Molesworth Street, Dublin.
National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin.
