The Adoption Authority of Ireland publishes its 2023 Annual Report; celebrates a year of milestones and achievements
First full year of operating under the Birth Information and Tracing Act since its commencement in October 2022
Dublin, 26 August 2024
The Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) today published its 2023 Annual Report, detailing goals achieved throughout the year and how it seeks to position itself for the year ahead.
The report, addressed to Dr Roderic O’Gorman TD, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, provides a summary of the AAI’s activities in 2023 together with statistics and figures for the year across a variety of topics and headings relating to work of the AAI. As 2023 was also the first full year of operating under the Birth Information and Tracing Act (BITA) that commenced in full in October 2022, the release of birth and early life records to applicants was being achieved within the statutory timeframes from September 2023 and as a result of the significant efforts by the staff of the AAI to meet the demand for those records.
The placing on a statutory footing of a robust tracing system in the BITA also sparked a surge of tracing applications since October 2022. During 2023, the AAI received 410 applications, of which 79% were allocated to a social worker by the end of the year. The outcomes of tracing are now appearing for the first time in the 2023 Annual Report as the AAI had its first full year of operating this new tracing system under the BITA.
Also established on a statutory footing in the BITA was the Contact Preference Register (CPR) and by July 2023, one year in operation, a total of 3,270 people were registered on the CPR. In 2023, the AAI received applications from 445 individuals to the CPR.
Some other key headline figures in the report include:
- 90 Domestic Adoption OrDers were granted during the year. There are four different types of domestic adoption: long-term foster care to adoption; domestic infant adoption; relative/extended family; and step-parent.
- 209 entries were made in the Register of Intercountry Adoptions on foot of applications for recognition of adoptions. Of this number, 184 were for recognition of adoptions effected outside of Ireland by adopters who were habitually resident outside the State.
- The AAI received 1,641 applications for birth certificates, birth and early life information, care and medical information through BITA in 2023, and the AAI released records to 3,504 applicants during the year.
- 82% of applications for birth and early life information came from Ireland, 10% from the UK, the remainder from the rest of the world
- 5,225 checks of parents preferences on the Contact Preference Register were completed
- The Social Work team closed 136 tracing cases
- Following the AAI’s substantial employee growth rate of 63% in 2022, 2023 marked a move to increased permanence and stability. In 2023, the AAI conducted 14 recruitment competitions, including two confined competitions.
Ms Orlaith Traynor, Board Chairperson, reflected on the past year, saying: “I would like to express my appreciation for my Board colleagues for their time and expertise, their commitment, dedication and sheer hard work involved in making significant, life-changing decisions, ‘without fear or favour’, focusing on the best interests of the child. The Board has noted that the complexity of the matters coming before it and those referred to the High Court continues to increase.
Ms Traynor also gave a special mention to former Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Patricia Carey and interim CEO Colm O’Leary. “The organisation bade a sad farewell to long-standing CEO, Patricia Carey, at the end of 2022. The Board and I would like to extend our sincere thanks to interim CEO, Colm O’Leary, for his able steering of the AAI while the recruitment process for a permanent CEO was underway.”
Ms Traynor continued, “We celebrated BITA’s one-year anniversary at the same time announcing that the backlog of birth information applications had been dealt with in September 2023 following the significant demand for records from services-users when the processed commenced in October the previous year. I am happy to say that the AAI is now in business-as-usual mode for the processing of all requests for records and for tracing under the BITA.”
CEO Lorraine Horgan said, “I am very happy to have joined the AAI in January 2024 and to be able to present the work outlined in this Annual Report. The achievements, activities and outputs in this report reflect the dedication and commitment of the Board of the AAI and all of our staff who have contributed to the AAI’s work in 2023.”
“I am excited to be working with the highly committed and dedicated team in the AAI as we progress our work under the remaining year of the current strategy in 2024 while also focusing on the development of the AAI’s next three-year strategy and shaping our vision for the future.”
For further information, please contact:
Karen Meenan, Limelight Communications,
Kathryn Byrne, Limelight Communications,
