I have a long personal history with St Patrick’s Guild, the adoption agency at the centre of Wednesday night’s RTÉ Investigates programme about traded babies and robbed identities. One contributor spoke of the fortress mentality exhibited when he sought information about his personal history. I can testify myself that his choice of the word fortress was apt and accurate. The programme devoted a whole 90 minutes to illegal adoptions, but never lost its hold. Aoife Hegarty’s research was exhaustive in scope and created a documentary that will cause as much of a stir as previous exposés of the shameful litany of abuses in our society.