Today's revelation that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children born to unmarried mothers were dispatched to the United States in the 1950 and 1960s is yet another insight into the manner in which children have been treated by the State over the years. It is alleged these children were taken to the United States for adoption, that parental names on their birth certificates were frequently falsified and that passports were issued for them in false names.
Barnardo's Child Care Agency, which has for many years provided assistance to adopted persons seeking to trace their original parents, has reported inquiries from more than 200 adults who were sent to the United States as children and who now want to trace their birth parents. Many of them have found great difficulties in doing so due to the falsification of birth certificates and to their lack of access to information that may be available to them in the Passport Office for which the Department of Foreign Affairs has responsibility.
For many years I have spoken of the need for a contact register to enable children adopted in Ireland to make contact with birth parents and to enable birth parents to trace their children who were originally placed by them for adoption. Today's revelations and those relating to Goldenbridge now starkly illustrate that urgent action is necessary to set up a contact register not only for children adopted in Ireland, but also for those sent abroad, for children reared in foster care and for children reared in residential institutions.
In relation to today's revelations, a number of questions should be answered. How many Irish born children of the 1950s and 1960s were sent abroad? What adoption or other agencies or individuals were involved? What records are preserved by the agencies or individuals so involved of the origins of the children concerned and of their proposed adoptive families? Were all the children sent to the United States for adoption, so sent with the consent of their mothers, and were the natural fathers ever consulted? What records at present exist within the Passport Office of applications made for passports for these children to travel to the United States and what records, if any, are held by the United States authorities of visa applications?
A former Government employee working in the Passport Office in 1958 said on the Gay Byrne radio show this morning that she was very surprised at the large number of passports sought for young children at that time. Details of all passport applicants from the 1950s and 1960s are, I understand, currently held on micro-film by the Passport Office. Consideration now needs to be given to the availability of this information.
Section 40 of the Adoption Act, 1952, prohibited the removal from the State of a child born outside marriage under seven years of age unless such removal was by or with the approval of the child's mother, guardian or a maternal relation. If any children were removed from the State without such approval, a criminal offence was committed. Moreover, there was also a provision in place which prohibited the removal of any such child less than a year old from the State unless the child was to reside with its mother or a maternal relative.
It is not my view that a witch-hunt should be conducted at this stage with a view to prosecution unless new information becomes available which demands that the position be reconsidered. It is essential that answers to the questions raised by me be sought. I propose that a formal inquiry be undertaken under the aegis of the Department of Health. It is essential that the agencies involved in sending children abroad for adoption purposes be ascertained and that they be asked to state how many such children were sent abroad by them and to clarify whether they still retain accurate records of the background of these children.
Legislation should be enacted without further unnecessary delay to provide for the establishment of a contact register. The necessary counselling should be available for children seeking to trace their origins and natural parents seeking to make contact with their children. The Adoption Board, in its most recent report, makes such recommendation, as it has done on many occasions. That recommendation was also made by the Adoption Review Committee in its report of 1985 and by CARE, the campaign for deprived children, when I was chairman of that organisation as long ago as 1978. We must establish such a contact register and provide the social back-up services required to meet the needs of adopted children, foster children and children placed in orphanages and homes who seek to make contact with their birth parents and trace their origins. Such a register is long overdue; the recommendations made to establish it should have been acted upon long ago.
I hope the Minister will confirm this evening that the Government will establish a contact register and say when the necessary legislation will come before the House. I hope he will respond to my proposal that an inquiry be set up to seek answers to the serious questions which need to be answered for the sake of many hundreds, if not thousands, of children who were effectively exiled from the State in which they were born.
