Mr. Dermot Mulligan:

I thank the members for their comments and questions, which I appreciate. We are very conscious of how sensitive this area is for individuals and organisations. There are different points of view and different rights involved. Reference was made to the difficulty of balancing those rights. I would not underestimate the difficulty. I will try to address the questions. If I miss any, the members may remind me of them.

One of the core questions concerns why a change is being advocated now. Why was this not thought about back in 2000 and 2002, when the legislation was brought in originally? A watershed moment in the past 15 years was the publication of the Ryan report in 2009. It established, without any shadow of a doubt, the scale and systematic nature of the abuse that took place and the hurt done to so many children. That was not known about in 2000 and 2002. The question of why we are changing now is a fair one. What I have described is the key in this regard.

If we do not do something, the records will be destroyed, as the Chairman said. The need to remember and to retain the documentation that indicates exactly what happened, the people to whom it happened and the wrong that was done to them is the real reason this Bill is being proposed. Some commentators have talked about the power of personal testimony. As the Chairman said, nothing has the same impact as an individual's story about what happened to him or her. The more we anonymise, sanitise or summarise exactly what happened to individuals, the greater the risk that we will forget what happened. Perhaps that is the key point.

Our legal advice is that approximately 75 years is appropriate. Fifty years is probably too short because of the points made on life expectancy. It may be, and I hope it is the case, that average life expectancy will become longer than this. It is a difficult call to make as to how soon to allow access. We are balancing the various rights. I take the point it may be different in 75 years' time and there will be an opportunity to revisit this then.

With regard to the scale, we are speaking about 1 million to 2 million records so it is significant. These records relate to more than 16,000 applicants to the redress board, more than 1,000 applicants to the review committee and approximately 2,500 individuals who engaged with the commission. We have been in intensive discussions with the National Archives about this and the intention is that not all of these records will be retained. Many of them deal with administrative issues such as arranging meetings, which are probably not of archival value. This is certainly the view of the National Archives.

With regard to the change to the provisions on confidentiality under which people made submissions and applied and whether this is a breach of trust, there is a difficulty with balancing where we thought we were as a society in the period from 2000 to 2002 and where we are now, knowing what happened and what the Ryan report clearly states happened, and the imperative that nothing like it can happen again and the protection of the rights of children are paramount. How to do this and where to draw the line is a difficult question. It is one of the issues we have carefully considered with legal advisers, and the outcome of this is that sealing the records for 75 years gets the balance right.

In terms of consultations, what we planned in this area was the subject of a Dáil motion in 2009 and announcements were made in 2013. When it was published, we circulated the general scheme to congregations and survivor groups for comment. We have not received as many written submissions as the committee has. We received two written submissions from congregation groups, we have had some contact with representatives from survivor groups and have received submissions from two individuals. If the groups which have made submissions to the committee want to send them to the Department, we would be interested in their content and would be willing to meet them to discuss the points raised. This is an important and sensitive issue and we want to consult and engage with the various groups and individuals who have a view on it.

In regard to who will be legally responsible for the records, currently this is the responsibility of various bodies. We are working with the National Audit Office on who will bear legal responsibility for them when they move to the National Archives.

In regard to the education and finance board records, following establishment of the residential institutions statutory fund. the property rights and liabilities of the education and finance board were transferred to the residential institutions statutory fund board, which took the decision to destroy those records. The Minister had no particular role in that regard. This may in the future lead to some administrative problems in terms of new applications for services to be funded by Caranua but it is not considered to be an impossible thing to overcome. From the point of view of retention of those records, they were not at that stage considered to be of any particular archival value.

I hope I have answered members' questions.