Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 January 2023
1014. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the steps that he is taking in response to individuals being informed that they will not be provided with their personal information within the statutory 90 days, under the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022, by a State body (details supplied). [2266/23]
View answerInformation and Tracing services, as provided for under the Act, opened to applications on 03 October 2022. As of 10th January, a total of 6251 applications for information have been received by the Child and Family Agency, Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI), with 65% of that total being received within the first two weeks of commencement.
Processing the initial volume of information requests, reflecting decades of demand, is proving to be a challenge. However, as of 10th January, over 1000 applicants have received their information. In addition, the AAI have successfully identified 196 matches on the Contact Preference Register for people seeking to contact relatives and are working with the matched people to facilitate contact, with contact having been facilitated between 49 pairs of relatives so far.
An additional €1.05m was provided to the AAI and additional funding of €3m was provided to Tusla Adoption Services in 2022. These additional resources were to fund additional posts that year, including genealogical and archival expertise and support, as well as run a public information campaign on the legislation. Utilising these additional resources, both organisations undertook extensive recruitment campaigns and trained and onboarded additional staff in advance of the opening of information and tracing services.
Officials from my Department have been engaging with both the AAI and Tusla in respect of the ongoing implementation of services under the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022. Both agencies advise that they are re-assigning further additional staff members to work exclusively on processing applications and that they will continue to keep every person who is waiting for information informed about their application.
I am deeply aware of the disappointment and frustration caused to applicants receiving a notification indicating that there will be a delay in the compilation and release of their information. I have been assured that both agencies are doing their utmost to respond to all the applications received within the shortest possible timeframe.
