Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In regard to the phrase "Lest we forget", I think that sometimes we have to forget because we are not able to live with the abuses of the past. We have to do that from an imaginative point of view at least as otherwise we would not get out of bed in the morning.

The people who gave these most harrowing and appalling testimonies about their lives did so in the knowledge that they would be confidential, or did they not? Did somebody say to them that they would be confidential up to a point or not confidential? I thought they gave these testimonies confidentially. Is that not the point? If they are confidential then they should remain so. Whether people thought that meant they would be held in an archive or destroyed I do not know. I understand the need for preservation but I understood that the testimonies were made in good faith and confidentially. Perhaps I am wrong. I am not too sure the people concerned are aware of what is being proposed given the process has moved on somewhat and brilliantly. In my view, the Government dealt extraordinarily well with this, in so far as it could.

Perhaps I could get an answer to my question, which really is the nub of what is at issue.