Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. We are giving consideration to further legislation in this area, although it will not be emergency legislation. We already have the National Archives Act and there are already offences with regard to the destruction of public documents, but I appreciate that does not apply beyond the State sector. My understanding is that the archive is not held in the Department of the Taoiseach anymore. It has not been held there for some time. That may have been why people were wrongly given the runaround when it came to FOI. The archive is held by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth at present.

The McAleese archive, which relates to mother and baby institutions, will be preserved as part of a major work under way to establish a national centre for research and remembrance. Last March, Government approved a plan for a national centre for research and remembrance which will be located on the site of the former Magdalen laundry on Sean McDermott Street in Dublin 1. The centre will stand as a site of conscience and will be a national memorial to honour equally all those who were resident in industrial schools, reformatories, Magdalen laundries, mother and baby institutions and all other institutions. It is shocking that, back in the 1950s and 1960s, more than 10% of the population was living in one form of institution or another.

The centre will comprise a museum and exhibition space, the development of which will be led by the National Museum of Ireland, a research centre and a repository of records relating to institutional trauma in the 20th century that will form part of the National Archives. There will also be a place for reflection and remembrance. As part of the development, there will be social housing and educational and community facilities, and it will be a valuable addition to the social and economic infrastructure in Dublin's north-east inner city. One unique aspect of the central repository will be the inclusion of personal testimonies of survivors, allowing their lived experience to be formally recognised and kept forever. The inclusion of personal testimonies will ensure the lived experience of survivors will be captured in their own words for publication and archiving in the national centre.

The initiative will be underpinned by statute - there will be a law on it - and will operate on a voluntary basis, with personal accounts received and utilised only with the consent of participants. Work on the creation of the central repository of records in the national centre is being led by the National Archives. This work is supported by a dedicated legal and legislative subgroup, which is considering whether any additional legislative measures are needed to enable the creation and management of the archive. It is also worth pointing out that the Birth Information and Tracing Act already provides an important foundation for the creation of this repository because it mandates the safeguarding of relevant records, which is now law. The Act was commenced on 3 October 2022.

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