Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of an apology is to give meaningful action. A commission has destroyed evidence and yesterday the Minister told the Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration that the commission has said there is no way of retrieving it. Did he not make the Taoiseach aware of that letter? Second, I am asking that all of the correspondence be published. Third, we have again an imbalance of power. We have the powerful telling the powerless what they think is in their interest and that they should be protected by getting rid of the tapes. I see no basis for getting rid of the tapes. In fact, all the tapes from a previous commission on child abuse were preserved. At this point, there is absolute urgency. As the Taoiseach knows well, the commission comes to an end at the end of the month. We want clear answers. I ask him please to stop giving me filling in pieces and specifically to tell me if the correspondence will be published and what action he will now take in view of the fact that the evidence cannot be retrieved. People went forward, took courage in their hands and gave their evidence and now we have a summarised version of that evidence by commissioners who see nothing wrong with that. The report was leaked and the Taoiseach promised an investigation into that but we did not get that either. I am conscious of time but this is a really serious issue. I ask the Taoiseach please to give straight answers and to stop telling me about anything else. This is one specific issue. How did this happen? On what basis did it happen? Did the commissioners look at precedents from previous commissions where the evidence was preserved? I ask him please to publish the correspondence.

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