Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. From my own perspective, the situation with regard to mother and baby homes represented a very dark period in our history and an appalling approach to the treatment of women and mothers and, at the time, the separation of child from mother. I accept the norms of later years but as an individual and as a parent, the separation of child from mother is something I can never get over but that was the practice at the time. In the modern era, in some respects we have moved on a lot in terms of creating support for families and mothers in challenging situations.

I do not believe this should be a matter of dispute in the House. I regret the degree to which the Deputy has cast aspersions on the Minister's intentions and motivation, which are very sincere and heartfelt. The legislation is being brought forward to provide urgent and critical legal clarity surrounding the future use of a database compiled by the mother and baby homes commission. It is genuinely being brought forward to preserve invaluable information, not to put it beyond reach, as has been reported: that is not the intention.

The Bill will make it possible for the database that has been compiled by the commission to be accessible under current legislation and make it available for use under future birth information and tracing legislation. It is important to state that the purpose of this legislation is also to preserve all of the records which the commission has compiled in the course of its work and it does not otherwise alter the governance of the commission’s archive under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004.

The urgent issue in front of us is to ensure that we preserve the invaluable cache of information and not lose it forever. As Members know, in the course of its work, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation has compiled a database of the mothers and children who were resident in the main mother and baby homes. The commission and the Government agree that this database will be of considerable assistance to those involved in providing information tracing services to individuals who were residents in these institutions. The database includes information extracted from institutions whose original records are now held in the main by Tusla. The legislation has been advanced to address concerns raised by the commission about the need for it to redact personal information and the impact which such redactions would have in terms of effectively destroying this database. The impetus for this Bill derives from the necessity to secure an urgent, bespoke solution to protect the complete records of the commission, including the database, before its expected dissolution by the end of this month.

The commission is due to submit its final report to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs by 30 October 2020 and then stand dissolved. Prior to its dissolution, under law it must deposit all commission records with the Minister. In the normal course, such records are then sealed for a period of 30 years prior to their transfer to the National Archives. This is a requirement of the Commission of Investigation Act 2004 and one we are bound to follow.

In advancing the legislation today, we are ensuring that an incredibly valuable and useful set of data can be used into the future and can support - I stress this - that essential information and tracing component that would otherwise be lost. It is critically important that we acknowledge that the commission received testimony from individuals who were former residents of mother and baby homes under a guarantee of absolute confidentiality. That is a commitment to many vulnerable people with real lived experience of post-trauma which cannot be reneged upon. This is not just simply a historical matter; it is a real living issue for many people. I will take further questions on that but this is about enabling people to access their records in time and to balance that. This act is necessary before the end of this month to preserve these records.

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