There have been 914 children adopted from Vietnam by parents resident in Ireland between 1988 and 2020.
That is according to the Adoption Authority of Ireland, which has published its latest research report on inter-country adoption.
Adoptions from Vietnam accounted for the second largest proportion of all inter-country adoptions into Ireland after Russia in that period.
It represents 18% of Ireland's ICA population.
787 of the children - 86% - were adopted before the enactment of the Adoption Act in November 2010.
The remaining 127 were adopted afterwards.
The Adoption Act 2010 coincided with Ireland's formal ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption.
The Adoption Authority was also established that year.
The purpose of the act was to improve standards in both domestic and Inter-country adoption.
Prior to November 2010, the average age at adoption from Vietnam was seven months old. It rose to two years old after the act was implemented.
The annual number of children adopted from Vietnam into Ireland peaked at 183 in 2008.
They were suspended for a number of years after 2009 while Vietnam re-structured its adoption system. It recommenced in 2014.
45% of children adopted from Vietnam went to families living in either Cork (214) or Dublin (205) at the time of the adoption.
The AAI report offers a social context regarding the culture of large-scale inter-country adoption from Vietnam which "commenced abruptly" in 1975 with 'Operation Babylift'.
Part-funded by the US government, and authorised by then-President Gerald Ford, the operation involved the "rescuing" by US soldiers and volunteers of thousands of Vietnamese children, purportedly left orphaned or abandoned as a result of the war.
According research by Professor of Social Work Karen Smith Rotabi cited by the AAI, the children were flown to the US and a number of other countries including Canada, Australia and France in an attempted humanitarian intervention, prompting numerous similar events despite the controversy it caused.
The number of inter-country adoptions from Vietnam dipped sharply in the 1980s, reportedly as a backlash against the operation. In time, however, the figures began to increase again.
The first children were adopted into Ireland from Vietnam in the late 1980s, with numbers growing steadily into the 1990s, in accordance with an overall increase in ICA adoptions from Vietnam.
However, as the numbers continued to increase, some stakeholders began to voice concerns about how the adoptions were effected according to Prof Rotabi.
The mean current age of a child adopted from Vietnam into Ireland is currently 14 years old.
While the ages range from 3-40 years old, the vast majority (83%) of individuals adopted from Vietnam are currently aged between 12 and 20, with 12-15 year olds accounting for 54%, or more than half, of the total figure.
Almost three-quarters (74.1%) of the children adopted from Vietnam into Ireland were female, and just over a quarter (25.9%) were male.
The AAI notes that one Irish study conducted in 2008, which looked at the health and psychosocial development of children adopted into Ireland from a number of countries including Vietnam found that the majority of children were doing well, with a minority reporting persistent, longer term developmental difficulties.
A 2016 study found that referrals by GPs for mental health assessments were significantly linked to age at
adoption, with children adopted at an older age more likely to be referred.
