Vol. 437 No. 6
547 Mr. Shatter asked the Minister for Health if, in respect of each of the years from 1986 to 1992, he will give the number of Adoption Orders made in favour of adopters of mixed religion, in favour of Roman Catholic adopters and in favour of adopters of a religion other than Roman Catholic.
The information requested by the Deputy is not readily available as the Adoption Board no longer analyse adoption orders by reference to the religion of the adoptive parents.
I understand that it would be necessary for the board to check through more than 4,500 adoption files in order to assemble the information in question. I hope the Deputy will accept that it would be unreasonable to ask the board to undertake such a mammoth task particularly as it is under no legal requirement to publish information of this nature in its annual report.
