More than 16,000 people have registered their contact preferences with the Adoption Authority of Ireland to date.
A Contact Preference Register was introduced last July as part of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022.
The purpose of the CPR is to enable contact between family members affected by adoption.
Through this register, people can choose their contact preference, including a request for privacy.
The Authority says that the Act "enshrines in law the importance of knowing one's identity while balancing the rights to privacy"
Figures published in the Authority's Annual Report today show that within one month of the CPR going live, 900 adopted people and birth parents had registered their contact preferences.
Between the 1st of July and the end of the year, there were 2,563 applications to the CPR from adoptees, 158 from parents, and 253 from other relatives.
The Authority noted that a portion of these represented updates to existing entries, including changing contact details or updating contact preferences.
Combined with the transfer of records from the previous NACPR (National Adoption Contact Preference Register) system, the total number registered had reached 16,217 by the end of the year.
In 2022, authorities checked the CPR for preferences 1,117 times.
Where there is a "no contact" preference recorded against a birth parent's entry on the CPR, the Authority is required to carry out information sessions with any application requesting information.
11 such information sessions were completed with applicants between November and December last year.
Between October to December last year, there were also 2,570 applications for the release of information from the Adoption Authority.
The majority of these applications came from within the Republic of Ireland (2,272), while there were 25 applications from Northern Ireland and 143 from Great Britain.
6% of all requests for information came from 24 other jurisdictions around the world, including 67 from the United States and 31 from Australia.
The majority of these requests were made by a "relevant person."
A relevant person who is an adopted person, a person who has reasonable grounds to suspect they are subject of an incorrect birth registration, a person who has reasonable grounds to suspect they have been at any time in the period following birth up until the age of 19 were resident in an institution specified in the Act or the subject of a nursed out or boarded out arrangement.
By the end of the year, 460 applications were completed, with information released to the applicants.
The Authority said that in all, 1,810 applicants were advised that the release of their records would take up to the 90-day statutory limit for the release of information or possibly longer.
