Thousands of adopted children and natural parents are facing delays of up to three years in accessing tracing services following the closure of one of Cork's largest voluntary adoption societies.
St Anne's Adoption Society closed in September, transferring its 3,000 client files to the Southern Health Board. The society had a staff of six part-time counsellors and two full-time social workers handling its case load. No social workers are currently employed at the adoption unit of the board.
"The administrative and counselling staff simply doesn't exist within the health board to deal with these files. The people who had been getting help, or waiting to get help through St Anne's, are being left high and dry," said Ms Kathleen Lynch, the Labour Party TD for Cork North Central.
It was appropriate, Ms Lynch said, that responsibility for St Anne's support services should be transferred to the State. However, the State had failed to resource the service. "The health board knew this was coming, and they haven't put anything in place. It is hugely unfair on the staff who have to deal with all these additional files," she said.
In a statement, the Southern Health Board said it had employed a researcher previously at St Anne's on a six-month contract, but no additional resources had been provided by the Government. The board said it hoped to get funding to employ a social worker in the new year.
"At this time funding hasn't been provided nationally for adult-tracing services, and the board is attempting to meet the demand for an adult-tracing service from within existing resources."
The Adoption Board has said it is aware of the staffing problems within the health boards.
"There are definite problems with the delays in accessing search and reuniting services. Some health board areas are under more pressure than others, but everywhere the waiting lists are long," a higher executive officer with the Adoption Board said. "The whole area of tracing and domestic adoption is currently under review."
Tracing services were been treated as a very low priority by the health boards, the Adopted People's Association (APA) said.
"Some health boards have a dedicated staff, but most don't, and people can be waiting anywhere from six months to five years to trace their parents," said Mr Anton Sweeney, of the APA and Adoption Ireland.
Due to the excessive delays people's searches "often end up at the graveside", Mr Sweeney said.
Forcing people to have counselling before they trace their parents was contributing hugely to the delays.
"The vast majority of people don't require or want counselling, but the agencies insist on providing counselling/screening before they start tracing," he said.
More often than not these assessments were not performed by qualified counsellors or psychotherapists, and leaving the task to social workers who already had large case loads was inappropriate.
