POLICY files relating to the issue of passports to Irish children going abroad for adoption from the 1940s to the 1960s have been released to the National Archives by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Also yesterday, the Archdiocese of Dublin released a file on the policies which governed the Catholic Church's attitude towards adoption during that time.
The Department files deal with adoption requests mainly from US citizens to Irish adoption societies. All specific information regarding individuals has been removed and remains restricted under section 8(4) of the National Archives Act, 1983. This Act restricts information which may distress living persons or which has been supplied in confidence.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, hoped the files would illuminate the practices and attitudes surrounding such adoptions. He hoped the files "will be of help to mothers and their children, who are now seeking to understand decisions taken 30 and 40 years ago".
The Department is in contact with people seeking information on these adoptions and is helping them within the constraints of the law. Difficulties may arise over the release of confidential information. The Department is also working with other relevant Departments on resolving these issues. The Tanaiste fully supports a proposed Bill to establish a national adoption register, which would assist adopted persons and birth parents to re establish contact. The Tanaiste revealed the existence of the files in March of this year.
Following this, the archivist for the Dublin Archdiocese, Mr David Sheehy, undertook a search, in the diocesan archives for material relating to foreign adopt ions. According to yesterday's statement, it is clear from the archives that there were differing perspectives about the advisability of American adoptions.
A key adviser to the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Charles McQuaid, expressed serious reservations about the adopt ions. Some Irish adoption agencies seemed to find enough adoptive couples in Ireland but other agencies found foster parents difficult to find and adoptive parents even more difficult.
According to evidence in the archives, the latter agencies' experience was that few Irish couples were willing to adopt a child "possibly owing to the absence of legal safeguards and also, to some extent, to the stigma surrounding illegitimacy".
As a consequence, the statement went on, the agencies found that prospective American couples were "a vital element" in their efforts to find homes for the children as a preferable alternative to long term institutional care. Ultimately, the Adoption Act of 1952 brought about an increase in the availability of Irish adoptive parents and the practice of foreign adoptions declined.
The statement says that for many years now the Catholic adoption agencies in the Archdiocese of Dublin and elsewhere have been using their files to, help people, trace their relatives. Earlier this year, the diocese established an ad hoc committee of representatives of the adoption societies and diocesan officials to share information.
The director of Barnardos, Mr Owen Keenan, last night asked why the Department's files could not have been made available earlier.