The Eastern Health Board approved only 40 couples for international adoption in 1997, al though five social workers worked full-time in this area, according to the International Adoption Association.
"This week's media controversy has finally revealed the anti-adoption prejudices of some social workers," according to the chairman of the IAA, Mr Francis Mc Geough. "IAA families report a very high level of dissatisfaction with the adoption assessments. "They describe how some social workers direct very offensive and objectionable remarks at them and that the general ethos of some health boards is hostile to international adoptions," he said.
"It is troubling that the health board with the largest team in the country carries out so few assessments. There would seem to be a strong case for seeking efficiency improvements in the EHB's international adoption services." Mr McGeough's remarks came just days after the attitudes of some health boards toward foreign adoptions became the subject of a heated debate. Psychiatrist Dr Patricia Casey said parents hoping to adopt were "subjected to the most intimate and intrusive of assessments, not to mention their views on race, colour and refugees, as well as discussion of their sex lives and inspection of their bank accounts".
A total of 418 couples sought an assessment for international adoption during 1996 and 1997, the EHB's Childcare Services Report for 1997 showed.
International Adoption Association families, whose assessments began this summer, had waited for an average of 20 months, although the EHB claimed there was now a nine-month wait. Families in other health board areas were also experiencing long delays, according to the association.
Mr McGeough said that EHB assessment involved 10 meetings with couples and a "parenting course", bringing the duration of assessment to 40 hours. This compared with about 10 hours in other health board areas, an IAA survey of its national membership had shown.
An IAA conference held in Dublin at the weekend heard that research showed adoption was the childcare option most likely to be in the child's best interests. Ms Patricia Morgan, the author of a report entitled Adoption and the Care of Children: The British and American Experience, said keeping children in institutional care indefinitely must be avoided.
Most children in care would never be considered for adoption and only 3.5 per cent of all who passed through the English system would go to a new home.
More than 75 per cent of those, when they left care, had no qualifications and their unemployment rate was four times higher than that of youngsters generally. Children in care were 60 times more likely to be homeless and 50 times more likely to be imprisoned, said Ms Morgan.
However, there was overwhelming evidence which showed that adopted people fared better and had fewer problems than children reared in foster homes or institutions. Adoption broke the cycle of disadvantage, so the difficulties of one generation were far less likely to show themselves in the next.
"The time cannot be more ripe for a radical reappraisal of the way in which we deal with displaced or unwanted children, of all and any racial origins. There is a powerful argument for time limits to family preservation measures, which should be subject to criteria of safety and permanence, she said.