CASH FOR BABIES SCANDAL

CRUEL nuns kept illegitimate babies with their "Magdalene" mothers until they were toddlers - so they could get lucrative State hand- outs.

When the tots reached two they were torn away from their mothers and put up for adoption in an unspoken "babies for sale" scandal which helped fill Church coffers.

State documents from the 50s, 60s and 70s reveal the Government was handing the nuns a small fortune to care for illegitimate children until they were two-years-old.

In 1945 local authorities paid "mother and baby" homes 12 shillings and sixpence per week for each expectant mother.

The rate doubled to 25 shillings a week when the baby was born - the equivalent of the average industrial wage.

But after two the funds dried up so nuns put them up for

adoption. Records show that in the 1960s the adoptive parents forked out sums as large as pounds 10,000 to the nuns to cover so- called "legal fees".

And the nuns canvassed the rich parents for money for years afterwards to help support their work.

The Irish Adopted People's Association's Susan Lohan last night called on the Church to open files on the lucrative adoption deals to help reunite mothers with their lost children.

"The Church indulged in bald profiteering up to the 1970s by continuing to export Irish babies in blatant breach of adoption laws.

"Many of the American adoptive parents were grateful enough to make donations to the adoption agencies which facilitated their acquisition of a child.

"These sums helped to stuff the Church's coffers and more importantly from the Government stipends for every mother and child under two in their care.

"It dosen't come as a surprise then that most of the several thousand children who ended up in the US did so around their second birthdays," she said.

Officials say the women signed away their babies but many of the mothers did not know what they were doing.

And the APA's Kevin Cooney accused the nuns of emotional blackmail with the tots' new parents.

"Basically they were saying we gave you a baby and we're looking for money now.

"They would ask for contributions for things like plumbing works or maintenance work or building work," he said.

Dr John Charles McQuaid, the Arch-bishop of Dublin during the scandal was determined the babies went to Catholic families.

He wanted to keep them out of the hands of Protestant families in the North and Britain.

Up to 40,000 children were adopted from convents in Ireland.

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