Adoption Authority receives over 3,800 applications for birth tracing information 

Interim AAI chief executive Colm O’Leary said the number of applications and registrations the authority had received 'exceeded expectations'. File picture

More than 3,800 people have applied for birth tracing information over the past year, according to the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI).

The Birth Information and Tracing Act , signed into law by President Michael D Higgins on June 30, 2022, and officially launched on this day last year, grants people the right of access to birth certificates, birth and early life information, where this is available, for all persons who were adopted, boarded out, the subject of an illegal birth registration, or who otherwise have questions regarding their birth information.

Though application wait times increased due to demand following the act's implementation, the AAI said just 36 applications remained to be completed.

The act also established the Contact Preference Register (CPR), a mechanism that enables family members affected by adoption to contact each other.

The AAI said 3,417 people have registered their details on the CPR since last July, with 255 matches completed since then. It said 85% of those who submitted their details to the register in the last 12 months were themselves adopted persons.

Some 400 people also submitted birth tracing requests to the AAI over the past year, of which two-thirds have now been allocated a social care worker. Ten per cent of these requests resulted in the person making contact with a relative, the AAI said.

AAI's board chairperson Orlaith Traynor said she was "mindful of how important the timely receipt of this information is to adoptees, those boarded-out or nursed-out and those who were the subject of incorrect birth registrations" and that with the initial birth information application backlog now cleared, the AAI is now responding to new applications within the timeline set out in the Birth Information and Tracing Act.

Interim AAI chief executive Colm O’Leary said the number of applications and registrations the authority had received “exceeded expectations”. 

"With over 85% of the new registrations coming from adopted persons, the authority is keen for more birth parents to join the CPR and record a contact preference which will enable the authority to continue its work with the CPR in future years," he said.