Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the course of the debate on the legislation, the Minister was advised that his position was wrong. He was challenged on that point and advised that European law and instruments had primacy over the 2004 Act that he was citing. That went in one ear and out the other. It alarms me that the House was misled and that there were repeated public policy statements about sealing an archive for 30 years, which were clearly unlawful, and that it was echoed repeatedly as the position of the Minister, the Government and therefore the State. This is concerning because it is the latest evidence in a long litany of evidence of the capacity of the State, despite everything that happened and that we know, to be in denial and to visit further suffering and cruelty on citizens whom it has failed badly. The belated recognition that GDPR rights are real and will be honoured and vindicated by the State is good but I share the concern about the limitation of those rights. Will survivors have a right to all of their personal information? When I say all of their personal information, I include administrative files that tell the story of the institutions in which those individuals found themselves. In addition to the mother and baby homes files, will GDPR rights be recognised in respect of the McAleese and Ryan files? Will the State finally open up and allow victims and survivors to have complete knowledge and access to their own files?

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