Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Baineann mo cheist leis na hoird rialta agus go háirithe leis na cáipéisí atá, faraor, fós i seilbh na n-ord seo. Tá an chosúlacht ar an scéal go bhfuil teipthe go hiomlán ag an Rialtas dul i ngleic leis an dúshlán na cáipéisí seo a chaomhnú agus a chosaint agus, níos tábhachtaí fós, iad a chur ar fáil do lucht acadúla agus don phobal.

My question relates to what appears to be - forgive me if I am wrong - the complete failure of this Government and previous Governments to take action to preserve and protect the records held by various religious organisations in this country. I want to distinguish, as the Government has done, between public and private records. In previous responses to me and other Deputies, the Taoiseach said that the public records in the possession of the State in various Departments will be made available in a central repository on the former site of the Magdalen laundry on Seán McDermott Street in due course. The Taoiseach might provide brief update on that.

My specific question, which is related, is on the records which have been described as private - a description I totally disagree with - and which are held by religious orders. There has been no attempt by the Government to bring in legislation to protect and preserve those records and make them available to the public. In saying that, I am acutely aware of the recent article by Fintan O’Toole about a survivor of the Glin industrial school in Limerick. Significantly, this survivor was born in 1949, the year in which this country became a republic. This man has written a book about that. The issue for me today is on a court case taken by the Christian Brothers against him because he has some records that they want back. It is not that they want to make these records available to the public. Presumably, they want to keep, hide or destroy them. The man in question is on record as saying that he burned previous records on their instructions. The Glin industrial school was sold in 1973. This date is significant because Cherish was set up in that year and the first allowance was brought in for so-called unmarried mothers. We then go forward and look at three apologies given over two centuries in respect of the various institutions and the horrific abuse carried out there. If the apologies are to mean anything, then we have to follow it with action.

One action is the central repository the Government intends to established. I presume the Taoiseach will provide an update on that. The second involves building trust by getting the records from the religious orders. We do not have those records. Recommendation 52 of the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes encourages the religious orders to make their data available to the public. I do not want four minutes to be taken up with what the Government is doing in the context of the plan for the central repository. I want the Taoiseach to zone in on the specific question I am asking, namely, what steps, action or legislation are proposed to protect, conserve and make those documents available to the public?

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