Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We now know that the Attorney General did not advise the Minister in respect of the GDPR legislation when we were told that he had. Was the Taoiseach aware of this? Will he now acknowledge that the information peddled by the Minister, the Taoiseach and the Government was totally false? This concerns me because we were led to believe that there was engagement on this matter with the Attorney General. Time and again the Taoiseach and his Ministers come in here and tell us that the advice of the Attorney General is whatever it may be on the day, but can we really believe them? We now know that the Minister was fully entitled under the 2018 GDPR legislation and the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 to take custody of the whole of the archive and all the records gathered and created by the commission, including all personal data in those archives. Under the GDPR, archiving purposes in the public interest are lawful grounds for processing personal data. Why was this not considered before the legislation was rushed through?

I welcome that the Department, under the new advice from the Attorney General, has changed its position and that the Government is now telling survivors that the Act does not preclude consideration of data access by the Department when it receives the archives from the commission. We should be working to ensure maximum transparency and access to files. I welcome what has happened in recent days, but we need to make sure the Government is going forward on a solid basis of acknowledgement and maybe even a bit of humility for not having listened to the survivors, their families and their representatives. It is important that we do that and that we outline the timeline around the Attorney General and where his advice comes from.

Will the Taoiseach confirm that GDPR applies to the archive of the commission of investigation both now and once the Minister receives it? Will he also confirm that all necessary resources and independent expertise will be put in place to correct the practice of all controllers of historical abuse records, including religious and other non-State bodies, from holding on to these records? Does the State now have the authority to instruct them to release all the records? When will the Minister reconvene the independently appointed collaborative forum for former residents of mother and baby homes to advise the Government on how to respond to issues of institutional abuse? When will the independent committees of data protection law experts be set up? We have an opportunity to do this right. We need to listen and to act in a timely way.

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