IRELAND
Galway Advertiser
The HSE raised concerns in 2012 that up to 1,000 babies may have been illegally adopted to the United States, in “a scandal that dwarfs other, more recent issues with the church and state,” according to a report in the Irish Examiner.
The warning is contained in an internal note of a teleconference that took place in October 2012 with the then head of Medical Intelligence Unit, Davida De La Harpe, and then assistant director of Children and Family Service, Phil Garland.
This suggestion was made more than two years before the discovery of a mass grave at the home, containing the bodies of 796 children, which forced the Government to launch an enquiry into all mother and baby homes in the country.
The note echoed the concerns of the principal social worker for adoption in HSE West, who had discovered “a large archive of photographs, documentation, and correspondence related to children sent for adoption in the USA,” and “documentation in relation to discharges and admissions to psychiatric institutions in the Western area”.
Letters from the home to parents were also discovered, asking for money towards the upkeep of children that had been adopted or had died by that time. The social worker compiled a list of up to 1,000 names, but claimed it was unclear “whether all these relate to the ongoing examination of the Magdalene system, or whether they relate to the adoption of children by parents, possibly in the USA”. It did note the possibility that death certificates of children were falsified in order to facilitate illegal adoption.
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