New rights for Ireland's adopted

Tens of thousands of children were adopted

Tens of thousands of adopted Irish people are to be given the right to learn about their origins.

The Republic's minister for children, Mary Hanafin, said she was anxious the new arrangements respected the rights of all parties.

A voluntary contact register will now be set up alongside a national records index and search service to help with tracing parents and adopted children.

The register will allow adopted children and their birth parents to make contact while maintaining their privacy.

More than 40,000 children have been adopted since the 1950s, many by families in Britain and the United States.

Hampered

"The new legislation will attempt to strike a balance between a person's right to information and a person's right to privacy," said the minister.

Ms Hanafin said adopted people had long been hampered by the secrecy surrounding adoption.

"Adopted persons have only limited access to information about themselves, and no information about their birth family.

"In recent years, there has been considerable pressure from adopted people to have access to such information, which they see as a basic human right," she said.

It is estimated that about one third of births in the Republic last year involved single mothers.

Mary Hanafin: "Right to privacy"

In the past strong social pressure led to single mothers putting their children up for adoption, with many raised in foster homes, state institutions and orphanages.

This created difficulties in accessing adoption records.

That problem was further compounded by some mothers keeping their births secret and not wanting details revealed, said the minister.

The Irish government agreed a draft bill on adoption information and post adoption contact at a cabinet meeting.