Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his comments. I recognised during the discussion on the database legislation that I had not reached out enough to survivor groups prior to that. Following the passage of the legislation I met approximately 50 survivors via phone calls, which is a substantial number, during November and December and I continue to meet them.

In the context of the publication of the report, in the past two weeks I met twice with the collaborative forum, which is a body appointed to represent the diverse groups of survivors. We arranged to have two meetings because I understood that there would be a significant amount of material on which we would need to engage with them. I will meet other survivor groups in the future to discuss the various elements of the action plan. I am also aware that in the medium and long term there needs to be a better mechanism in place for engagement between survivors and the Government. We have committed to an enhanced model of stakeholder engagement. I made a suggestion to the collaborative forum. I am engaging with it in the first place as the body that is currently in place and following that engagement we will broaden the discussion. I am very much aware that the scale of the actions that have been set out by the Government needs some sort of external voice to ensure that I, successor Ministers or Ministers in other Departments are adhering to the commitments. That is very important. We do not have the mechanism to do that at the moment.

As regards the deletion of records, I became aware of the deletion of the taped testimonies of those who had given personal accounts before the confidential committee when I read the report. It was stated in one of the chapters that outlined how the commission functioned. There had been a reference in the debate in the Seanad to some deletion of tapes by one of the Senators who said it was stated clearly in the text of the report what the commission had done. In the report the commission indicated that it had done this in compliance with what it understood were its obligations under data protection law. I know that since the report has come out people who gave testimony before the confidential committee have argued that they did not understand it as the commission did. The commission circulated a document that stated it would seek permission to tape the personal accounts before the confidential committee. That document did not reference deletion. The commission has stated in all correspondence with me that it asked for consent for the deletion of these tapes. However, I acknowledge a number of survivors have come forward to say their consent was not sought. It is problematic when survivors say they are not being listened to. The Deputy raised the case of a survivor with whom I and the Department have engaged who says they are not being listened to.

In the context of what we can do next, I have outlined a range of actions in terms of the action plan but what is fundamental is to ensure that we can take what actions are possible, - as Minister and soon as data controller of the archive - that are within the power of the data controller. People have a range of rights under GDPR. One of those rights that I have mentioned on a number of occasions is a right to rectification, which is if a person feels there is incomplete information about him or her on a particular file, he or she can seek to have that rectified. In terms of the very significant responsibility that my Department will have as data controller, we have been looking into the right to rectification to see whether it provides a mechanism. The lived experience of survivors is crucial both in terms of what is in the archive, but also how we as a country remember what happened in these institutions. I also believe that in the context of the national records and memorial centre there is a very real capacity to use the personal accounts of those who gave them to the confidential committee but also the much wider range of survivors because, as we know, 550 gave their personal accounts before the confidential committee but there is a much bigger number overall and I believe we can use them as part of the response.