SOME 2,000 people sent to the United States as babies or toddlers because they were "illegitimate" are to be helped to contact their birth mothers, the Tanaiste said last night.
Their adoption files have been found in the National Archives and cover the years 1948 to 1962.
"It seems that over those years we were sending approximately 110 children a year on average to the United States, hopefully to a better life, but at what cost in human suffering we may never know," Mr Spring told members of Saint Angela's Peace and Justice Group at the Ursuline Secondary School, Waterford.
The news was greeted with delight last night by a New York woman, Ms Mary Ellen Hall, born Rosaline Joan Quinn in the west of Ireland on September 11th, 1951. She said she received no help when she sought assistance from the adoption society which handled her adoption by a couple from Wichita, Kansas, when she was less than a year old. She said she intends to write to Mr Spring straight away.
Mr Spring ordered a search for the files when the exodus of these children was reported earlier this week.
"The files that have been uncovered contain the names and dates of birth of the children concerned, the names of their birth mothers, and the names and details of their adoptive parents," he said.
"Each file is supposed to contain a declaration by the mother, confirming that the child was born out of wedlock, that she relinquishes all claim to the child forever, that she agrees to the issue of a passport, and that she undertakes "never to attempt to see, interfere with, or make any claim to the child at any future date," he said. "One can only imagine the pain that must have been involved in signing many of those declarations."
"It is my hope that the existence of these files may be of some help in healing the pain caused all those years ago." He warned that "there are difficult legal issues surrounding the release of confidential information relating to individuals. However, I hope that we can quickly arrive at a point where it will be possible to make information available to people who want help in being reconciled and reunited with each other."
He would enlist the help of the Adoption Board and voluntary groups to work out an appropriate way of dealing with the information.
The attitudes of the time are reflected in a document which, he says, "outlines the papers to be submitted with the passport application for what is called a `Catholic illegitimate child'".
They include an undertaking by the adoptive parents that the child would be educated in Catholic schools and later, if necessary, in a Catholic university.
"Oh my God, that's why I went to a Catholic school, a Catholic high school and a Catholic college," said Ms Hall when told of this. "They wouldn't let me go to a public school and I wanted to so badly."
Prospective adopters also had to supply a letter from their own doctor confirming that in his opinion they were unable to have children of their own and that they were "not deliberately shirking natural parenthood".
The independent child care agency Barnardos said it was "delighted" at Mr Spring's announcement.
"It is perhaps too easy for us to have strong views about the way in which children are treated abroad, and to assume that we have no questions to answer about the attitudes we have taken here at home", said Mr Spring, referring to the treatment of babies in Chinese state run orphanages.
Following the recent Channel 4 documentary, Return to the Dying Rooms he had written to the Chinese ambassador, Ms Fan Huijuan, asking her "to convey to her authorities the sense of outrage which the programme and report had evoked amongst the Irish people".
His Department has urged the EU presidency and Commission to consider "possible areas for technical co operation and dialogue with the Chinese authorities, including, for example, the training of staff for orphanages".
