And didn’t get a passport till I was 37’

say he or she witnessed me signing the document which would have cost Ir£300 – which I refused to do.

‘Eventually, I got an official letter to say they had searched the records between 1949 and 1951 and there was no record of me, therefore I could apply for the passport using my baptism certificate.

‘The name on my passport isn’t really my name, so my passport isn’t legal really, is it?’

Maria is still searching for her birth certificate to this day and just two weeks ago got in touch with Tusla to see if a birth certificate she came across in her research could be hers.

Maria believes the inquiry needs to be fully comprehensive and include all possible nursing homes and adoption agencies who have been known to carry out these kinds of adoptions.

She believes time is of the essence: ‘I’m 68, there’s people a lot older than me waiting for information.’

Fellow illegal adoptee, Teresa Hiney Tinggal, 64, who was raised in Rathfarnham, Dublin, has set up online support groups for adoptees but wants more State help in tracing parents. ‘Now they need to fund free DNA tests for illegal adoptees, provide medical records and provide proper adoption counselling. It really is impossible to prepare for the revelation that the people you thought were your biological family, aren’t.’

She added: ‘I used to look in shop windows and wonder who looks like me or see people and think they could be my sister, they could be my mother. This is how so many more will feel.’