Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 7 September 2018
1176. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the institutions and agencies, nursing homes, religious bodies and so on which have been identified as carrying out illegal birth registrations; the period of time this encompasses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36979/18]
View answerThe State must reach a high level of certainty that an illegal birth registration has taken place before contacting the individuals concerned. While there have been suspicions about the practice of illegal registrations for many years, that threshold of certainty has to date only been reached in the case of the 126 Saint Patrick's Guild cases that I announced in May of this year. Those cases spanned the years 1946 to 1969.
The Deputy will be aware that a process is now being undertaken in order to establish whether there is sufficient reliable evidence of the practice of incorrect registration that can be extracted from the records of adoption agencies. There are an estimated 150,000 relevant records; these records are from the agencies, bodies and institutions historically involved with adoption and informal adoption. Approximately 100,000 of these records are currently in the custody of the State. The intention is that the Review will provide information to assist me to reach a decision about what subsequent action might be required to identify more fully the scale of incorrect birth registrations.
