Ms Justice Laffoy is strongly critical of the pregnancy counselling agency and its proprietor. A lawyer and a doctor associated with the events detailed also come in for criticism.
Her judgment spells out the desirability of separating the issues of pregnancy counselling and adoption, and puts flesh on the bones of the recently enacted adoption legislation. It sends a strong message that pregnant women in distress should avail of the services of agencies operating as part of, or in co-operation with, the public health system.
She described it as a "glaring situation of conflict of interest" where a pregnancy counsellor is also seeking to be an adoptive parent. This implies that there should be no connection between counselling services and adoption agencies. Her judgment also rules out any fudging between "care" of a child pending a decision on adoption and the first steps towards adoption.
She examines in detail the question of consent, and concludes that the absence of independent counselling and advice seriously compromised the mother's ability to make a free decision. Instead of giving her "appropriate counselling and support, the agency representative sowed the seed of an adoption in her mind".
Elsewhere in the judgment, Ms Justice Laffoy states that it is of "particular concern" that neither the mother nor her family members would avail of the professional advice and assistance of the medical, nursing and ancillary staff proffered at the hospital where the baby was born.
The judge had been asked to examine whether the agency's founder and prospective adoptive father of Baby A had legal custody of the child, whom he obtained from the mother this summer with a view to adopting her. The judge had also been asked whether the mother's consent to the adoption was a real consent, and whether the welfare of the baby was compromised by it.
Ms Justice Laffoy found that the man and his wife did not have legal custody of the child. She also found that the mother's consent was neither informed nor free, and was therefore not a real consent, but, even if she had given real consent to the planned adoption, this decision so compromised the welfare of the baby that it should be negatived, the judge said.
The mother of Baby A made contact with the agency through an advertisement in a telephone directory. She was contacted by the agency's local representative, who directed her to a GP linked with it. This GP made an appointment for her with an obstetrician, but did not see her or arrange counselling for her.
After she attended the obstetrician in Dublin, the mother later had a meeting with the prospective adoptive father, who ran the counselling agency. He told her she had a constitutional right to arrange a private adoption. Ms Justice Laffoy strongly criticised him for misleading the mother in this regard.
The judge describes the circumstances and condition of the woman in the later stages of pregnancy as "of an order of magnitude that robbed her of the ability to think rationally". In this condition, she approached the agency which, "through its advertisement in the telephone directory, held itself out as giving counselling and support to girls in her predicament, and as an organisation she could have trust and confidence in".
But, Ms Justice Laffoy continued, "instead of giving her appropriate counselling and support, the agency's representative sowed the seed of an adoption in her mind, an adoption involving the proprietor of the agency, and put her in contact with the proprietor . . . the proprietor and his wife proposed himself and his wife as prospective adoptive parents for her baby.
"It is hard to imagine a more glaring situation of conflict of interest than one in which a person who assumes the role of counsellor and adviser to a young girl in the later stages of a crisis pregnancy proposes himself and his wife as prospective adoptive parents of the baby." But, she continued, it was worse. Since April 1999, the respondent (the proprietor of the agency) had known that private adoptions were illegal, yet he persisted in attempting to persuade her to agree to one.
The reason he had known this since April was that he had already been forced to return another baby, Baby B, whom he and his wife had attempted to adopt privately. The mother in this case later decided she wanted an adoption arranged through the normal channels, but had difficulty in getting the baby back.
This experience was cited by the proprietor as one of the reasons why he and his wife left the Eastern Health Board area with Baby A, and hoped to regularise the adoption through an adoption agency under the patronage of a member of the Hierarchy he knew.
One of the reasons why the case of Baby B was discussed in the judgment was because of the involvement of two professional people with both babies. Both female, one is a GP and the other a barrister. The GP testified that she examined Baby B three days after the birth, when she was already in the custody of the agency proprietor. This in itself is unusual, as babies are not normally placed for adoption so soon after birth. Baby A was only four days old when taken from her mother.
The GP also examined the mother of Baby B. During contact with a public health nurse, she was informed that private adoptions were illegal. These were two of approximately 50 young women with crisis pregnancies referred by this agency to the GP, "all but three or four of whom have been seen by the GP on only one occasion".
The involvement of the barrister arose when differ slightly, but are essentially in agreement. The barrister represented herself as both a barrister and a friend of the proprietor. She countered the girl's arguments against the suitability of this couple as adoptive parents.
The girl also claimed in her affidavit that the barrister urged her not to have anything to do with the health board and said that she had full freedom to do what she wanted with her child. She said that, given her age, the father of the child could be charged with statutory rape and "the Eastern Health Board had been known to report things like that".
The barrister said in her affidavit that she had said the girl was not doing anything illegal in giving her child into the care of the proprietor, but denies saying the mother could arrange for them to adopt the child. She acknowledges that she said it might be alleged her pregnancy was as a result of statutory rape.
Mother A was also referred to this barrister by the agency proprietor. Ms Justice Laffoy comments: "On the evidence, it is reasonable to infer that he did so (involve the two professionals) with the intention of bolstering his influence over the mother . . . (which) strongly suggests that the mother was the victim of a deliberate design to `ring fence' her and her baby."