Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Forgive me if I repeat some points that have already been made. If we accept the fact that the powers of the coroner are being disapplied on two out of three sets of criteria, which is what the Minister is saying, but that the power of investigation is not diminished in any way because that is the law of the land, the legitimate question arises about the number of agencies involved. Referring to Tuam specifically - and thank goodness for the work of Catherine Corless and others - we reasonably know where we stand and what is ahead of us in the road ahead as this application applies. If I refresh my memory, we had a presentation from the historical burials legislation unit - the Minister's own colleagues - where they said that the legislation was being applied because existing jurisdiction to authorise exhumations does not readily apply to the particularly unusual circumstances arising at Tuam, and similarly the legislation governing the identification of remains by means of DNA comparison is not suitable for those circumstances. We know why we are legislating.

I have a final request for the Minister. If we accept that the power of the coroner is not diminished in any way will the Minister give this committee some comfort that resources will be made available for the recruitment of an additional number of coroners, or give us an assurance that the coronial process as it applies to the creation of an agency in respect of a specific site or other follow-on sites will not be hampered by the lack of adequate coronial services, such as for the efforts in seeking justice and the efforts in seeking to identify remains, and that these services are not undermined by a lack of resources? That is my question, fundamentally.

I have a second point for the Minister. There is one limited power that individual Members of the Oireachtas have, which is the power to submit the parliamentary question. I hope that something would be built into this legislation on the accountability feature that allows for me, as a Member of the Oireachtas, to make representations on behalf of a person or families who may wish to seek information. I hope that the making of those representations or the advocating for families, which is what we all do as Members, would not be diminished in any way and that some structure could be put in place so Members could assist such persons, and that GDPR and other barriers would not be put up in front of us.