The decline in the number of Irish babies put forward for adoption has led to the Limerick Diocesan Catholic Adoption Society discontinuing work and deregistering.
All domestic and foreign adoption services are being taken over by the Mid-Western Health Board.
Mr Ger Crowley, acting chief executive officer, said the new Regional Adoption Service, under the health board, has agreed to take responsibility for all records, ongoing assessments and waiting lists from the society.
The Child Care Act 1991 obliges all health boards to provide an adoption service.
Ms Ita O'Brien, director of child care at the Mid-Western Health Board, told The Irish Times yesterday that only four babies were put forward for adoption in the region last year, compared with 37 to 40 annually in the mid-1980s.
She said most young women who would have given their babies for adoption in the past were now deciding to rear them themselves.
People, she added, would prefer to adopt Irish babies, but the scarcity had led to the rush in 1989-90 for Romanian babies. The regularising of the system by the Foreign Adoption Act 1991 had led to people going also to Russia and more recently to China to seek babies.
Ms O'Brien said that under the Child Care Act health boards were obliged to provide an assessment service for families who wished to adopt from overseas. This was done in six sessions with social workers.
The Mid-West Regional Adoption Society is now based in the Fostering and Adoptive Centre, Glenbevan House, Upper Mayorstone, Limerick, telephone 061-328336.