Ms Siobhan Mugan:

We hope that non-identifying information will be given within eight weeks of application. We have not met that target because many of the records are not in file format. A record relating to one individual could be in several different locations. Social workers and administrative staff spend a lot of time compiling a record for somebody to make sure they have as much information as they can get to provide non-identifying information. We have also introduced two priority waiting lists. Priority one is for people over the age of 70 and people with serious medical issues and concerns and for any matches on the contact preference register. At the moment we are down to between two and four months, from the allocation of a social worker to starting to do the search. The search depends on how much information the client has and how long it takes to find somebody. It involves a trawl of records, maybe parish records, the General Register Office, GRO, records and trying to trace somebody. That takes time. Data protection can mean the work takes a little longer because while in the past the parish priest might have been quite happy to give information, now he says he cannot. We are sometimes caught in those situations and we are aware that in many cases applicants can find more through Google. The role of the information and tracing service is not necessarily finding a person but supporting the person through that process and helping with the reunion. In some cases, for those on the generic waiting list it can still take two years. We are working with a large quantity of records that are not in file format, not scanned and not on an electronic database. We are moving to that soon and hope it will speed up the process.