Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In answer to the question Deputy Sherlock asked about the amendments, access to the institutional payments scheme is based on evidence of a person's residence in one of the named institutions. That is primarily proved by the database that was created by the commission of investigation. This House voted to keep that database in 2020, to maintain it and to transfer it to Tusla. The database will be accessible by the independent office set up to oversee the payment scheme. That will be the primary way in which residence within an institution can be proved.

In response to some of the points that were made earlier, we know that every institution either did not maintain full records or, more importantly, and particularly in the cases some of the older institutions, those records do not exist anymore. The majority of records were obtained by the commission of investigation and form part of its archive, which was transferred into my Department following the dissolution of the committee. The archive does not contain records from every institution. In a situation where an applicant wishes to access the scheme and we are not able to prove residence through the use of the database, an affidavit will be applied. The scheme is designed to avoid affidavits, where possible, by simply allowing an official to look at the records and see if the relevant individual was in an institution and the length of time for which he or she was there. However, it recognises the reality that those records are not in existence in every case and offers an applicant another method by which to access the scheme.

The Deputy is right that there is a cost there. It is important to note that section 37 of the legislation records that legal costs for applicants will be covered within the scheme. We will not be leaving applicants out of pocket for their applications under the scheme.

Points have been also made about the Birth Information and Tracing Act, and the wider legislation. It is important to say that both the other two major pieces of legislation we have brought through - the Birth Information and Tracing Act and the Institutional Burials Act - underwent extensive discussion in this House and the Seanad. Both were the subject of many amendments during that process. The Birth Information and Tracing Act guarantees for the first time the legal right of access to a range of information, including birth certificates, birth information, health information and early life information. Some 6,900 people have now applied for their information since the scheme opened in October and 2,000 of those applications have been already answered.

I said throughout the passage of this legislation that every piece of information that is within the records and that is covered by the Birth Information and Tracing Act will be provided to people. I also said that not all the information is there. I was upfront about that point throughout the process. Institutions may have feeding schedules or important pieces of information. If the information is in an archive held by my Department, Tusla or the Adoption Authority of Ireland, it will be provided to applicants. However, there will be situations where that information does not exist.

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