Thousands register their contact preferences on new adoption register

Some 16,000 people have told adoption authorities whether they want to be contacted by potential relatives or not, according to new information compiled by the Adoption Authority of Ireland.

In July 2022, a new contact preference register came into existence on a statutory footing, replacing a previous voluntary register set up in 2005. Within one month of new statutory register being set up, nearly 900 adopted persons and birth parents had sent their contact preferences. The total number of records on the register was increased to 16,000 by the end of 2022. Nearly 2,000 people registered their details between 2021 and 2022, in comparison with 540 in the previous 12 months.

The main function of the register is to enable contact between family members affected by adoption, and adopted people or birth parents can also lodge a request for privacy there. However even if this is the case, an adopted person can still get access to their records once an information session has been held, which was at one point a highly contentious element of the legislation.

According to the Adoption Authority of Ireland annual report, due to be launched on Tuesday morning, 11 information sessions were completed with applicants last year and none of these sessions were refused by the applicants. All of the sessions took place over the phone. In total last year, the authority conducted 1,117 checks of parents’ preference on the register.

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Adoptees made up the highest number of registrants on the register, with a total figure of 11,246, while the second highest category of those noting their preferences were birth mothers, with 2,675 registrants.

In all, 13,980 entries on the register are from the Republic of Ireland, 150 are from Northern Ireland, 927 from Britain, 193 from Australia and 471 from the United States.

[ A wait of many decades to meet my mother ]

After the introduction of new birth information tracing legislation, allowing adopted people access to their records, staffing levels in the AAI increased from 29 to 59.

Colm O’Leary, the interim CEO of the authority, said that the new legislation “breathed new energy into the work of the authority and set a tone of expectation”.

However, he acknowledged that some people had been left waiting for their information.

“The surge of applications and the complexity and extent of the information involved created challenges for staff in providing information within the required timescales and the staff of the authority have continued to work tirelessly to respond to information requests as promptly as possible. Released information led to an unexpected number of additional queries which further slowed the work of information release.”

However, Mr O’Leary said the authority has now caught up in processing a backlog of information applications with the final 130 of the 3,750 received applications to be completed in the coming weeks.

“The board and staff of the authority understand that applicants may have been waiting on this information for many years. I am glad that the authority will shortly be responding to information requests within the statutory timeframes. We are very mindful of how important this information is to adoptees, those boarded-out or nursed-out and those who were the subject of incorrect birth registrations. I regret that the initial surge in applications delayed the release of information to many and appreciate the understanding shown by those who have requested information.”

Separately, there were 102 domestic adoption orders in 2022 and 170 entries on the register of intercountry adoptions. Intercountry adoption refers to the situation where persons resident in Ireland decide to adopt a child who is resident in a country other than Ireland.

The majority of orders granted were in respect to step-parent adoptions, which totalled 60. The number of adoption orders made for children who had been in long-term foster care in 2022 was 30. The remainder consisted of 10 infants placed from birth for the purpose of adoption, two cases of children living with extended family members. In 36 cases the child was 17 years of age.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland report also says that a risk and audit committee has conducted a review of the effectiveness of internal financial controls, and a review of the authority’s approach to ensuring it achieves value for money.

The authority received €7,557,000 in 2022 to carry out its work.