10 ‘illegal’ adoption cases set for High Court within weeks
Further delay on State report on forged certs
UP TO 10 cases connected with illegal adoptions in Ireland will be put before the High Court in a matter of weeks, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The news comes as Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone announced a further delay into the report commissioned last May into Ireland’s illegal adoptions.
Then, Ms Zappone said Tusla had uncovered 126 incorrectly registered births at St Patrick’s Guild in Dublin dating back to between 1946 and 1969.
Birth certs showed that the names of the adoptive parents had been placed on the documents instead of birth parents.
It is now expected the report will be delivered at the end of May, seven months after the original due date of October.
Ms Zappone told the Dáil that the reason for the delay was fieldwork by Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland had been ‘complex, forensic and resource intensive and has taken longer than anticipated’.
Now, according to Norman Spicer, a solicitor with Coleman Legal Partners, his firm is due to take 10 cases against St Patrick’s Guild, the State and others before the High Court in four or five weeks. Mr Spicer told the MoS that all of his clients had been unaware there was evidence of forged documents involved in their adoptions until Tusla contacted them.
Mr Spicer said his clients ‘feel like they’re part of an illegal act. Some feel some sort of shame that they shouldn’t feel; that they were involved in this collusion that went on. A lot feel that enough is not being done to right some of the wrongs that were committed against them.’ He said that some cases were more complicated than just birth certs, with other records also showing evidence of fraudulence.
‘It doesn’t really stop at the birth certs, there’s been other instances where records like baptismal certs are not as they should be,’ he said.
‘That frustrates the process even further. Everything has been very slow, we’re over 10 months from where we were and it’s all still ongoing.’
Tusla’s treatment of those involved has been varied, said Mr Spicer: ‘Some clients have been satisfied with the people they have been working with and the response from Tusla has been good. Others feel not enough resources have been put into working with the individual in dealing with the upset that they’re going through.’
Tusla did not return requests for comment this week.