Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Ceann Comhairle speaks to the matter of reason and the importance of people listening and hearing, and seeks to have that principle applied to both sides. The tone of the debate here, unlike debates on other matters, has been measured from an Opposition point of view, which is the point of view I can speak from. We are being asked to legislate with one hand tied behind our backs because we feel we are speaking to reason in seeking more time for more deliberation on issues. One issue that is pertinent to this Bill is information and tracing. We do not have an information and tracing Bill. That renders this Bill and its effects useless for the countless people who will want access to information on the contents of the database. I am not convinced that the Minister's amendments will ameliorate that. We have been told that there are 60,000 records. My colleague, Senator Ivana Bacik, said in the Seanad: "If one is one of the survivors or a family member about whom there is data held, how frustrating it is to know that the data is going to be held by the Minister but sealed for 30 years, and by Tusla for some undefined period yet a survivor or one's family member will have no access to it and no right to see it or even know what it is."

This is important and it is not centrally about the testimony given by survivors to a confidential committee but about the 60,000 records which, as the data protection assessment says, relate to a wide array of information, paper, records obtained under discovery and records held by the institutions, State, religious orders and so on. We are saying that people should have access to a large amount of information where it identifies them or a relative, or where it is their information. How frustrating it must be and paternalistic of us to continue to hold that and say we will allow people access at some future point but that we do not yet know how we will do that. There is a philosophical point about how, while nobody is striving with perfection, the Parliament deals with an issue as sensitive as this. We spoke last night and the Minister heard excellent, balanced testimony from Members about the genuine concern of people to find a way of negotiating this legislation in a way that has an outcome that speaks to the need to create the archive in an appropriate way and also with regard to the seeking of information. It was not partisan or overly political.

Aside from the flaws in the legislation, what is missing is the information and tracing Bill. We do not know when we will have that legislation. It is absolutely germane to this very issue. That is why we are hamstrung as a legislature. That Bill should at least be published in parallel with this Bill and should pass these Houses.

We are seeking to appeal to reason. The Minister has said that he will not accept amendments. As Deputy Whitmore said, that is a forthright view, and it renders the next few hours an utter sham. It makes a mockery of the legislative process. It shows that this is a Government that is not willing to listen to the voices of those on the Opposition benches who, to our mind, are putting forward reasonable amendments. We now have to go through the choreography and pageantry of the next hours, knowing that whatever we say is for nowt, thus disappointing and traumatising people who feel rightfully aggrieved because of the method by which this legislation is being passed.

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