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

I thank the Senator. I might give my reflection on what he has said because it is really valuable. In the 18 months following the publication of the commission of investigation report, we can see the huge problems with dealing with issues as sensitive as those the commission had to address in the context of the commission of investigation legislation. Deputy Cairns spoke about the importance of justice. Finding justice, without going that quasi-legal route, is extremely difficult because as soon as we talk of issues of justice, we talk of issues of accountability, responsibility and culpability. We then bring in a requirement for people to be able to defend their legal name and their actions, as well as the need for cross-examination and fair procedures and that is a consequence of the common law legal system we exist in. That system does not work well with a process seeking to understand the lived experiences of individuals. While I was not in the Oireachtas when the specific terms of reference for the commission of investigation into the mother and baby institutions were drafted, I think the confidential committee, as a sub-committee of the actual commission itself, was created as an effort to try to bridge that. It was to be a separate source where people could give, perhaps not sworn testimony in the same way that testimony before the commission was sworn, but another place where testimony could be given. We know now, in terms of the overall outcome, how unsatisfactory, to put it mildly, that was for those 550 survivors who gave testimony before it. To come back to the Senator's first point, the approach being adopted under the lived experience initiative, which will be adopted with the records and memorial centre, will be one that is trauma-informed and one based and undertaken by people who have an understanding of oral history, human rights and how people coming to give their personal stories need and should be treated. That is why we wanted to provide the flexibility. Should an individual who has already relived his or her story before the confidential committee not wish to do that again, that person could use the recording testimony that is already preserved in the archive and need only give permission for it to flow into the lived experience initiative. That is all such people would need to do, as well as giving the option to add to that or start afresh and allowing new people beyond this 550 to be able to do the same thing as well, albeit all in a trauma-informed manner.