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

The general point the Deputies have made is valid, in regard to the protection of documentation and information. The storage and dissemination of such information has to be protected. I have asked for new mechanisms to be brought into play to ensure the protection of material that comes before the Government.

The entire response of the Government to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is to deal, once and for all and comprehensively, with the issues that have been raised. I am not pre-empting the outcome of the ongoing investigation but it will deal with the overall arrangements for the management of documents for Government meetings and their confidentiality.

There will be an action plan on all of the recommendations that were contained in the mother and baby homes report, which will be published shortly, in terms of the survivor-centred approach, access to personal information, education and research, archiving and databases, memorialisation, restorative recognition, which I will come back to in a moment, and dignified burial.

The key issue for many has been the information on tracing. We have published that legislation. It is with the committee for pre-legislative scrutiny. It is radical. It is in line with what most Members of the House and, in particular, the survivors’ groups wanted. The scheme was published on the 11 May. This is the most effective way we can meet the needs of all those who were in mother and baby homes. It has been forwarded to the Oireachtas committee for pre-legislative scrutiny. It gives access to birth and early life information for people who were adopted or, indeed, who otherwise have questions on their origins.

I would like to work with Members. I would like to see this progressed prior to the end of the legislative term. There is a danger that it may not make it to the end of term. In other words, it could go over. I know that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is watching what is happening with the pre-legislative scrutiny at the committee to try to anticipate some recommendations and changes. That legislation covers not just all those who were adopted, but everybody who needs access to information on their origins. It would support access to early life care, medical information and so on. It will also provide for a comprehensive tracing service for people who want to make contact, share their information, request information from a birth relative, and make or establish a contact preference register to allow people to be able to record their preference in relation to having contact with birth relatives.

The Minister has done detailed work on the legislation on burials. He visited the Tuam site recently. He met with all of the interested parties there. That legislation is to support the excavation, exhumation and, where possible, the identification of remains and their dignified reburial. The legislation will support intervention at the Tuam site and any other site where intervention is reasonably required by virtue of the manifestly inappropriate nature of burials that may have taken place. Separately, the Minister and the team will engage with former residents and their advocacy groups on the question of appropriate dignified local memorialisation of a known or agreed burial site, where this is not already the case. That legislation will be brought forward shortly. The Minister updated Cabinet this morning on that.

With regard to compensation payments for the victims, a fundamental element of the Government action plan is to establish an ex gratia payment scheme. This scheme will include a financial payment and a form of enhanced medical card. An interdepartmental group was set up to develop detailed proposals for the scheme, taking account of the recommendations of the commission. However, it is not limited to those recommendations; it can go beyond them. The Minister has been overseeing this. The group's work is guided by a human rights focus, and informed by consultation with survivors, which took place during March and April. I am glad that consultation received a strong response. The work of the group is being finalised. The Minister looks forward to getting the group's final report and bringing the proposals to Government for approval early in this Dáil term. I hope that we have that before the House in a short while. The Government will then establish the scheme and make it available for application as soon as possible, beginning I would say at this stage, in early 2022.

That covers the range of issues that the Deputies have raised.

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