Social workers at the Adoption Board say they are unhappy about legislation which forces some mothers to adopt their children. The process severs the legal relationship between the child and his or her birth father and should be changed, according to their union, the Probation and Welfare branch of IMPACT.
They have also called for the urgent establishment of a national contact register to make it easier for parents and children separated by adoption to contact each other.
A mother has to adopt her child if she marries a man who is not the child's father and if they want the new unit to have the same legal status as an ordinary family. Both the woman and her husband become adoptive parents and the legal relationship with the birth father is severed.
Describing this situation as "distressing", IMPACT says there should be a change in the law to retain the child's relationship with the birth father while giving the husband joint parental rights with the mother. More than half of all Irish adoptions now fall into this category, they say.
Last year the Adoption Review Group also called for new legislation, saying that the present procedure "can lead to confusion, insecurity and problems in identity formation" for the children.
IMPACT says a national contact register should be based in the Adoption Board as some mothers may no longer remember the name of the society through which their children were placed for adoption, or these societies may no longer exist.
The 1996 report of the Adoption Board is at present with the Minister for Health, the statement says.