AN extra counselling service started last year by Barnardos to cope with a surge of inquiries about adoption will end this Friday for want of State funding.
Barnardos says it has been unable to get an assurance from the Department of Health that its funding for the service will be renewed.
The surge in inquiries followed the discovery last year of the State files on children sent to the United States for adoption up to the 1970s.
Barnardos, which has been running an adoption advice service without State funding since 1977, set up an extra telephone counselling service to deal with the surge.
The Department of Health provided £20,000 in grants towards the extra service and for individual and group counselling.
"The demand for Barnardos' adoption advice service increased by 49 per cent in 1996 and this increase has continued into 1997," the organisation said yesterday. "Already this year, 684 new callers have contacted the service while, in addition, 749 people have received individual counselling, telephone or letter contact. Our ground-breaking group work has also continued."
Barnardos' director, Mr Owen Keenan, said he had made many requests to the Department of Health for confirmation that funding would continue, but so far had been unable to get confirmation. "It is with great regret that our Friday pboneline and extra counselling services will cease this week," he said.
The traditional adoption advice service, on Tuesdays and Thursday, will continue.
Barnardos complained yesterday that, despite last year's furore, "there was no adoption contact register, promised repeatedly since 1994". It complained also that "no legislation had been brought forward to regulate or provide for the rights and needs of people separated from members of their birth families".