Dr. Maeve O'Rourke:

The following is a brief introduction to Professor Scraton's work. Professor Scraton is a founder member of the UK-wide non-governmental organisation, INQUEST, established in 1980 to safeguard and promote the best interests of bereaved families. Since then, the focus of his research has been with bereaved families and survivors of tragedies.

Professor Scraton headed the research for the independent panel into the Hillsborough disaster whose extensive report in 2012 led to new inquests which reversed the findings of the initial inquest and led to a new police investigation and criminal prosecutions.

In 2019, Professor Scraton was appointed to the UK JUSTICE working party into inquest and public inquiry reform which reported the following year. In 2020, Professor Scraton was invited to give written and oral evidence to the New South Wales select committee on deaths in custody and coronial reform.

Currently, Professor Scraton is principal author of the research report of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Death Investigation, Coroners' Inquests and the Rights of the Bereaved, to be published later this month; he is chair of the Haldane Society's inquiry into the official inquiry process in England; and with me, he is a member of the three-person panel appointed to advise Northern Ireland's Ministers on the most appropriate form of investigation and inquiry into the mother and baby and Magdalen institutions. Together, we co-authored with nine other academic practitioner and survivor authors our written submission which the committee has.

Turning now to the proposed legislation, clearly its enactment would disapply existing powers of the coroner in whatever locations and in respect of all deaths over which a new agency is given jurisdiction. The Bill implies that families of infants and mothers who died in institutional custody will be compelled to make a choice between exhumation and identification of their relative's remains followed by reinternment on the one hand and the coroner retaining the power to hold an inquest to confirm the deceased's identity, approximately when he or she died, where he or she died and, most important, how he or she died. The Bill also implies that no appropriate process already exists to conduct examinations, exhumations and identification, where necessary, of individuals who have died when in State care or when actions or inaction of State employees are involved.

I am just going to pause now because Professor Scraton is back with us. Should I continue or hand over to him?