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

On the specific point of the two references to the disapplication of coronial jurisdiction, what we are looking to address there is a situation where we want this agency to be able to intervene and exhume. From a legal point of view, it is regarded as inappropriate that at the same time the coroner would have also jurisdiction and the local authority would have jurisdiction. In terms of exhumation, we are not only disapplying coronial jurisdiction to exhume. We are also disapplying the local authority jurisdiction to exhume.

In terms of identification, this agency will have very significant powers based on legislation to undertake a DNA-based identification programme and that programme is not one that would traditionally be open to the coroner. The identification powers that the coroner has under the existing Act would be disapplied and there would not be concurrent jurisdiction. In terms of any other powers the coroner has under the consolidated Coroners Acts, those are not being impacted by what is proposed within the draft heads of this legislation.

On a decision to intervene, it cannot be a matter of merely leaving it up to public pressure. I do not agree with that interpretation of what has been done here. What we are seeking to achieve is to set out clear criteria within the legislation which will guide the Government, or future Governments, in a decision as to whether to intervene in a particular site or not. We all accept that those criteria have been reached in Tuam. We do not know whether they will be reached in other sites but it is important to say that is why this Bill was not designed as a Tuam-specific piece of legislation. It was designed in a way to be cognisant of the fact that there may be future sites where there is a need to intervene. We need to be conscious that whereas in Tuam there is that almost unanimous agreement, particularly among relatives of survivors, about the need to intervene, that same degree of agreement among relatives is not necessarily currently in existence for all other sites and that is why those various criteria need to be there and need to be considered.