Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to some issues raised by a number of speakers. In a reply to a parliamentary question issued last week, the Minister stated he had "sought further information from the Chair of the Commission to clarify whether it may be technically possible to recover any recordings or notes made by the Confidential Committee." He went on to state that he was "liaising closely with the Data Protection Commissioner to ensure these matters can be appropriately addressed by the Commission prior to its dissolution." He asked the commission whether the information that people have given can be recovered. Should the commission be the one to answer that question, given that it has breached its duty to the people who gave evidence to the commission prior to this?

What was the Data Protection Commissioner's response to the talks with the commission?

If the Minister does not get satisfactory answers, will he still go ahead and dissolve the commission at the end of this month?

Will the Minister publish all the correspondence between himself, the commission and the Data Protection Commissioner over recent months in order that the committee can be fully aware of the details and support him in his response? That is vital, not least to rebuild trust with the survivors, who gave evidence to the commission in the belief that it would be treated properly and who have been very disappointed up to this stage. The entire debate has been about how to recover the testimonies rather than about how we can help the survivors to move on.