10,000 women may have been deported from Britain to Ireland in forced adoption scandal

Women and babies were deported from Britain and incarcerated in Irish state institutions because the mothers were unmarried, reports ITV News after a year-long investigation.

Its report on the scandal covers one such case and then adds:

From 1930 to the late 1970s the numbers making a similar journey were so high, officials in London called them PFIs – ‘pregnant from Ireland’.

The British authorities saw them as a burden on the taxpayer and put pressure on the Irish state to address the situation, while the Catholic Church in Ireland feared the children would grow up in non-Catholic families.

The result was a repatriation scheme – it was supposed to be voluntary – but women have told ITV News they were effectively deported from Britain and their journeys were organised and paid for by the state and the Church.

By analysing official records of the organisations behind forced repatriations, and speaking to experts in this field, ITV News has discovered that as many as 10,000 women and babies may have been deported from Britain to Ireland between 1931 and 1977

The children, now adults, often only found out they were British citizens decades later.

The involvement of the Catholic church does not surprise me: there's nothing like a hierarchical organisation for fostering human wickedness. And churches, like business corporations, tend to behave as badly as they are allowed.

There may even be something about an organisation set up to do good for others that makes it more likely to foster bad behaviour.

I remember a former chief executive at work telling me he had never met such Machiavellian people as when he worked for a health research charity. The reasoning, presumably, is that such a desirable end justifies any means.