Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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247. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his plans to ensure that the identities of adopted persons whose births were not registered are re-established; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27764/14]

Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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248. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he has concerns that adoptions were allowed to take place in the past without ensuring that a birth certificate was available to ensure that the child's birth had been registered; if any investigations have taken place or if there has been any prosecutions regarding same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27765/14]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 247 and 248 together.

The Adoption Act 1952 provided a legal basis for adoption in Ireland and for the establishment of the Adoption Board. This brought order to what had been the system of ad-hoc arrangements in lieu of formal adoption procedures up to this point. All adoptions, which the Irish state has been involved in since 1952 have been carried out in line with this and subsequent adoption legislation.

I am also aware that some arrangements put in place in earlier decades were not within the provisions of the adoption legislation leaving people assuming they were adopted when they in fact were not. There were also births which were the subject of illegal registrations. The issue of illegal registrations of births are a matter for the General Registration Office which is the responsibility of the Department of Social Protection however the Adoption Authority of Ireland may also be able to provide assistance in this regard. However historic private arrangements for obvious reasons and due to social factors of the era, operated in conditions of great secrecy and there were rarely any contemporary written records of these events.

Records in relation to adoptions as well as illegal birth registrations are currently held by a number of agencies, including the HSE, the Adoption Authority of Ireland and also by private adoption agencies, maternity hospitals, private individuals and other sources. Information held by the Adoption Authority is primarily in relation to adoptions which took place since the Adoption Act 1952. If no adoption took place the Authority would not have an adoption file. Where no adoption took place, if records exist they may be held by a number of sources including hospitals, GPs, Mother and Baby Homes, religious orders and other sources.

The National Adoption Contact Register which is operated by the Adoption Authority was established in 2005 to assist adopted people and their natural families to make contact with each other, exchange information or state their contact preferences. When the former Adoption Board launched the National Adoption Contact Preference Register in 2005, provision was made for persons, who were party to the illegal registration of a child, to register an interest in the Register for possible future contact with another party sometime in the future. Fundamental to the success of the Register is that any persons with information in this regard contact the Information and Tracing Unit of the Adoption Authority.