The Minister for Children says she is "very concerned" at delays by health boards in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow in assessing couples who wish to adopt foreign children. More than 500 couples are waiting for their applications to be processed in the east of the country.
Ms Mary Hanafin TD said the number of couples awaiting assessments remained high. This is despite an extra €830,000 allocated to the Eastern Regional Health Authority in the past four years for measures to speed up assessments by health boards in the region.
The Minister has written to all the health boards outside the ERHA region to ask if they can help with assessments there, but all have told her they cannot spare social workers for the task.
Of the 1,041 couples awaiting assessments nationally at the end of December, most (538) were in the east.
This contrasts with 103 in the south-east and 120 in Cork and Kerry.
It now takes approximately 22 months for the assessment for couples in the east to begin, according to the South West Area Health Board which carries out the work for the three health boards in the region (all three are funded through the ERHA). This compares with 18 months in the southeast, nine months in Cork and Kerry and four months in Longford/Westmeath.
Once the assessment begins, it takes eight to nine months to complete - this is in line with the time taken by other health boards, though some do it more quickly. This means that from the date they first apply for an assessment, couples in the east can expect to wait 2½ years, according to the official figures.
But the International Adoption Association, which represents adoptive parents, disputes this figure, saying the waiting time is three to four years. Last year the SWAHB completed 137 assessments and at that rate it will take three years and 11 months to complete the remaining 538 assessments, the IAA says.
In a letter to the IAA last November, the Ombudsman said couples in the east who applied to adopt in June could expect to wait three years for their assessment to begin. This, added to the time it takes for the assessment to be done, suggests a total waiting time of up to three years and nine months.
However, the SWAHB says that since then it has reduced waiting times.
The main reason for lengthy delays in the east appears to be the difficulty in recruiting social workers to meet the country's highest level of demand.
Ms Hanafin said funding had been provided for 20 social workers in the foreign adoption assessment service in the east. At present the service has just over half that number and two are team leaders with managerial responsibilities. Another social worker is due to join the service next month.
The IAA alleges that an additional cause of lengthy waiting lists is that SWAHB social workers produce assessment reports which are up to three times longer than those produced by social workers in other health boards. The health board says it has reduced the length of its reports and that it has received no complaints about its reports.
The IAA is critical of the delay in implementing a reorganisation of foreign adoption assessment services, announced last September by the Eastern Regional Health Authority. Under the reorganisation each of the three health boards in the region would have its own team of social workers assessing applicants for foreign adoption. The ERHA is currently recruiting staff for these services and is to appoint a regional co-ordinator.