Memorandum to Frank Aiken by the Department of External Affairs
(340/12/114) (345/96) (Copy)

Deputy T.A. Kyne’s¹ question re Thomas Kavanagh (Jane Russell)²

1. On the 30th October the ‘Irish Times’ carried a report that Miss Jane Russell, the film actress intended to come to Ireland to find an Irish baby for adoption. The report included a statement from Miss Odlum,³ of the Church of Ireland Moral Welfare Organisation, to the effect that Miss Russell would be most ill-advised to come here expecting to be able to adopt a child by just asking for one.
2. On the 8th November, quite incidentally, the London Embassy informed us that a passport had been granted to enable an Irish child to travel abroad for adoption.⁴ The teleprint, which stated this bare fact in parenthesis, asked for a direction on the Department’s policy in such cases. We replied that passports should not be granted in such cases without reference to the Department and we asked for particulars of the case mentioned.
3. On the 10th November we received a reply from London⁵ saying that the case referred to was the ‘Jane Russell baby case’ which the English papers had been featuring for some days previously. The next day’s (Sunday’s) English papers stressed the case heavily. They reported that the child had been put on a plane for the United States on the 6th November, that is, on the same day as the passport was applied for and issued to its father.
4. Obviously, this whole affair was primarily a publicity stunt on the part of Miss Russell and her London agents. One of her agents, a Mr. George Routledge, called with the child’s father, Mr. Kavanagh, to the Passport Office and acted as guarantor for the application. The previous day (5th November) Routledge had telephoned the office for information regarding passport applications and, in the course of conversation, had referred to Miss Russell’s desire to adopt a child. He explained that Miss Russell was not adopting this child.
5. In accordance with the regulation that parents must give their written consent to their children travelling unaccompanied by them, when applying for passports, Mr. Kavanagh produced a typed document in proper form witnessed by Mr. Routledge. He also showed his Irish travel permit card as evidence of citizenship and the child’s birth certificate.

   In other words, the strict rules applicable in such cases were complied with.

6. ‘Adoption’ was not given as the reason for the child’s journey to the United States in any official context. Even in press interviews, all parties were careful to emphasise the ‘holiday’ aspect of the journey. Thomas Kavanagh (aged 15 months) was born in London and as a ‘British-born’ child could not be legally sent out of Britain for adoption by an alien abroad. The Adoption Act, 1950, interprets ‘British’ to include Irish in this connection.
7. On the 15th November, the British Home Secretary (Maxwell Fyfe)⁶ was asked a question in the House of Commons about this affair. He replied that the child’s parents had consented to Thomas Kavanagh travelling to America for a three months’ holiday. Another question is now down in the Commons in relation to the desirability of tightening up the existing British regulations to prevent any recurrence of this kind of incident.
8. Instructions have now been sent to all Irish missions abroad to ensure that no passports will henceforth be granted to parents of either sex under 18 years of age without prior personal reference to the Head of Mission. In the case of Beyrouth (the only honorary consulate which gives passports) the reference must be made to the Department direct.