New birth tracing law has had 'seismic' impact, says Adoption Authority

A mother and daughter, having made contact via Ireland’s contact preference register in 2022, enjoyed a “really positive experience”, and could now continue to communicate “as and how they wished”. File picture: iStock

Applications from people seeking to contact their birth parents increased almost fourfold in 2022 after Ireland’s birth tracing legislation finally went live, the adoption authority has said.

Some 6,250 people had applied for access to their birth files by February of this year, more than two thirds of whom did so within two weeks of the new legislation taking effect on October 3.

The central adoption authority meanwhile hailed the “seismic” effect the introduction of that legislation had had on its operations, while noting that adoptions in Ireland nevertheless remain at low levels.

Chair of the Adoption Authority Orlaith Traynor said that the board had “warmly welcomed” the introduction of the Birth Information and Tracing Act last year, which meant that adopted people aged over 16 were entitled to view their birth records for the first time.

Previously, adoptees had been unable to access such information in cases where a birth mother had cited a right to privacy.

Ms Traynor said that the introduction of tracing legislation had been “enthusiastically greeted” by the authority, though she said that the glut of applications which followed had been “greater than anticipated”.

That surge of applications saw the system logjammed for a time, with the Department of Children admitting at the time that the intense interest in the service had presented an unexpected “challenge”.

Ms Traynor said that staffing levels at the authority had more than doubled from 29 to 59 across 2022 in order to satisfy the new functions required of it under the new legislation, while its social work team was now operating at its full complement of 12 professionals.

Contact preference register

The Birth Tracing act also put Ireland’s contact preference register (CPR), first devised in 2005, on a statutory basis for the first time.

Using the register, adopted people or former residents of a mother and baby home, among others, can apply for registration, and to express an interest in either contacting a specific person or to be contacted by them, or to access information about that person.

In its annual report, the Adoption Authority said that contacts placed on that register had increased by 14% to 16,284 across 2022, despite the new legislation only commencing in October of that year. That increase was almost four times that seen in 2021, the authority said.

The vast majority of entries on the register, or just under 70%, at present represent adoptees, with birth mothers, siblings, and birth fathers respectively the next most common applicants. Just one entry relates to an adoptive parent seeking contact.

A case study in the report details how a woman had first placed her interest in contact on the register in 2005. In 2022, following an awareness campaign instigated at the commencement of the tracing legislation, her daughter — whom she had placed for adoption in the late 1970s — joined the register, and the two were matched.

Having made contact, the two had enjoyed a “really positive experience”, and could now continue to communicate “as and how they wished”, the report said.

Adoption numbers

Separately, present-day adoptions in Ireland remain at low levels, the authority said, with just 100 declarations of eligibility granted for domestic adoptions in 2022, down from 121 the previous year, and 22 for intercountry adoptions.

Last week, the Irish Examiner reported that there are just 20 to 25 couples and single people waiting to be matched to a baby for domestic adoption in Ireland.

Most of those applicants will not be successful as only around five to seven infants are placed for adoption each year, the Adoption Authority said.