Redress scheme needed for illegal adoption cases

Rossa McMahon writes in today’s Irish Examiner about some of the legal issues arising out of the illegal adoptions story.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar … says the sense he has from the people affected is that they are looking for information, not money. This is a convenient attitude for the Government to take, but the reality is that there is little that can be done to offer any form of redress to the people affected other than compensation, not least because of the complex legal issues raised and the fact that seeking to address these issues in traditional court proceedings will be fraught with difficulty.

Compensation and estate claims may be the last thing on the minds of the people affected by this scandal and the Taoiseach is right to say that they will primarily be looking for information about their identities. However, very real upset and trauma has been caused and will be caused by this and the State needs to act quickly to establish an investigation and redress scheme for those affected.

The full article is available here.