"I am not who I am supposed to be"; "I was robbed of the chance to meet the woman who gave birth to me"; "I don't know who I am." These are the voices of people affected directly by the scandal of illegal adoption in this State. Some will feature in an "RTÉ Investigates" documentary to be broadcast tonight. The news that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has confirmed at least 151 illegal adoptions at the St. Patrick's Guild adoption society in Dublin is deeply upsetting. However, it has to be said it is not surprising.

Successive governments have known of these scandals for decades, yet they have failed to name them or to act, despite ample documentary evidence. Indeed, campaigners have been raising these issues with successive governments since at least 2002. Over the years, the Adoption Rights Alliance has raised specific issues of illegal adoption with successive Ministers, but it was only in 2018 that we began to see some movement. This St. Patrick's Guild audit is only the tip of the iceberg. It is widely considered that thousands of children were illegally adopted, some trafficked to America or elsewhere, and that hundreds of institutions across the State were involved in these practices. Indeed, it has been reported that the Government review has found evidence of illegal adoptions in multiple organisations.

We now need a transparent and inclusive investigation into Ireland's adoption system as a whole because this was yet another massive failure and abuse by the State in its treatment of women and children. It was deliberate and it was criminal. Children had their identities erased through the falsification of their birth certificates. Their most basic right was stolen - the right to know who one is and from where one came.

There are people who were illegally adopted but have no idea they were adopted. Many have lived for decades unaware of their identities and without access to their records. Many will want to know who their birth parents are, but now it may be too late. This was the case for Anne O'Connor, who received a letter from Tusla in 2019 requesting a meeting with her. Anne met officials from Tusla in London, where she now lives, and was told she had been illegally adopted. She was told her parents, who had passed away, were not her birth parents, her birthday is not her birthday and she was not born where she thought she was born. These revelations rocked Anne to her very core. She said there was loss everywhere. There was something about not knowing this. She is 65 years of age. She said, "It's too long. I wasn’t who I thought I was, but I don’t know who I am."

All adopted people are entitled to know who they are. The State needs to end the discrimination against all adopted people in accessing their personal records. This means introducing information and tracing legislation as soon as possible but, foremost, it means passing legislation that will give all adopted people a legal right to obtain a copy of their birth certificate. Tá an reachtaíocht seo foilsithe ag Sinn Féin. Tabharfar an Bille os comhair na Dála an tseachtain seo chugainn. Bhí comhrá cuiditheach ag mo chomhghleacaí, an Teachta Funchion, leis an Aire, an Teachta O’Gorman. An ngeallfaidh an Taoiseach chun tacú leis an reachtaíocht seo? Sinn Féin has published this legislation. We will bring the Bill before the Dáil next week. I am asking the Taoiseach to commit to supporting the legislation as a first step to right these wrongs.

First, I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious issue. I am aware an "RTÉ Investigates" programme due to air this evening will focus on the St. Patrick's Guild illegal birth registrations. The illegality of what took place is shocking, particularly for those affected. I refer to the trauma, anguish and hurt that people are now experiencing as a result of this unacceptable practice. What happened was wrong, plain and simple, and completely unacceptable. Enormous trauma has been placed on people as a result of this illegality.

As the Deputy is aware, the Government is committed to introducing information and tracing legislation as a priority. The people involved in this particular issue, who are the victims here, were approached by Tusla and essentially told they are not who they thought they were and their parents are not those who they thought they were. They do not know who they are or who their parents are and they cannot get access to the most basic information any human being should have access to. The priority has to be information and tracing legislation. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is working on that with the Office of the Attorney General to provide comprehensive legislation which will provide access to birth information, including the birth certificate, for individuals and for anyone who has a question about their identity and, indeed, origins.

More broadly, the Minister has also established an interdepartmental working group to identify the issues that have now arisen for many of the affected victims and individuals, and to propose solutions for them. Those solutions will then form the basis of consultation with those affected by these illegal birth registrations.

The Deputy knows that a sampling review into illegal birth registrations was commissioned in 2018 by the then Government to identify whether there were markers on files to indicate a practice of illegal birth registrations in the records of other adoption agencies and similar institutions like those that were found on the St. Patrick's Guild files. The then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs appointed an independent reviewer to oversee the process. The publication of the sampling review had to await the final report of the mother and baby homes commission as it encroached on its work. Now that the commission has published its report, it is intended to publish the sampling review shortly. The Minister will be bringing a memo to the Government about the sampling review next week. That is the intended timeline for that.

The files at St. Patrick's were unique insofar as there were markers on the files indicating that children were adopted from birth. As we know, social workers from Tusla are continuing the work of informing people that their births were illegally registered, arising from markers found in the St. Patrick's Guild files. The number of confirmed cases, as the Deputy said, has increased from 126 to 151 since the announcement in May 2018.

I understand that one of the primary issues that will be raised in the programme this evening is the lack of information for the individuals in question and the difficulties they face in accessing records. Understandable anger and frustration are clearly being felt. We are very committed, as a matter of urgency, to bringing in comprehensive legislation on information and tracing to deal with this issue once and for all.

These matters are deeply traumatising and upsetting but they are not surprising. That is the point. There has been knowledge of these deliberate and criminal practices for a considerable length of time. We now need to put things to rights. There is the scandal of illegal adoption itself. There is also the scandal of the trafficking of children to America and elsewhere. There is also the ongoing scandal, to rub salt into the wound, of the State and its agencies deliberately blocking and frustrating adopted people in their attempts to access their information. Perhaps that is the biggest scandal of all and it persists to this day. We need information and tracing legislation and it must put the rights of the adopted person first, front and centre.

In the meantime, Sinn Féin has legislation in respect of access to birth certificates that we will bring next week. I appeal to the Taoiseach to follow in the steps of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, who has been constructive on this matter and to support this legislation as an immediate and necessary first step to put things right.

The Deputy knows that the Government is bringing in such legislation and that our legislation has been fully and comprehensively informed, from a legal perspective, by the Attorney General. I ask the Deputy to wait for the Government legislation to be published and I ask that all parties in the House, in a spirit of co-operation, would work on that legislation. It is being formulated to give access to birth information, birth certificates and very basic information in terms of identity to which every individual and human being is entitled. The previous Dáil attempted to do this but it was not in a proposition to achieve consensus on the matter when the previous Minister brought forward legislation. There is now an opportunity to deal with this matter once and for all on a cross-party basis and provide access to information. It should be done in a non-partisan way because we all want to do the right thing. All parties have articulated a similar view. The Minister has given an indicative timeline that he will have the legislation by the end of March. It is complex work, but he is determined to do it.