Several couples from Northern Ireland illegally adopted orphans from Romania in the early 1990s.
The Northern Health and Social Services Board in Ballymena, Co Antrim, informed the Department of Health of at least two cases where Romanian children had been brought to the north by couples who had managed to circumvent agreed procedures.
A declassified memo from the Department of Health, dated May 1994, to the Northern board, said it had been aware for some time that "UK couples have been engaged in sharp practices in their efforts to obtain Romanian children".
The problem was that, after the initial flurry when several couples were successful in bringing children into the country, the agreement drawn up between the UK and Romania had made legal adoption more difficult.
However, in parts of Romania the adoption agreements drawn up by the Bucharest government were not popular with court officials and managers of orphanages.
The memo read that "couples keen to obtain a child are finding that they can go to certain areas in Romania, find a child and get local officials to sanction its removal despite the terms of the agreement".
An official from the department said there was little it could do about this.
"One of these days an officer might refuse to issue a visa and return the child to Romania on the next plane but it would be a brave official who would take that step in the present climate," he wrote.
