Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Section 28(6) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act prohibits the publication of information concerning an application or an award made under the Act that refers to any other person, relevant person, or institution by name or which could reasonably lead to the identification of any other person, relevant person, or institution. This is important because the redress board does not operate like a criminal court. It operates on a much lower threshold of proof. It does not make any finding of guilt in regard to any individual or institution. It is a confidential process held in private. Were one to allow people to start talking about names and institutions there is no doubt that many of these cases would end up going before the courts and compromising the whole process.

Many people want the process to be private and prefer it to be private. It offers them an alternative to pursuing civil or criminal court cases, certainly civil court, cases in seeking compensation for their injuries. The confidentiality provision protects the victims but it also protects the good names of other people who may not have been investigated per se or have had the right to clear their good name while the names were mentioned at the commission.

That a person has applied for or been granted redress does not stop them from criticising or publicising any wrong suffered. It is only the disclosure of the fact of the application to the redress board and any award or the name of any institution or person in the context of the application that they cannot speak about. A person may speak about his or her experiences in an institution but he or she cannot include any information relating to the fact that he or she made an application to the board. It does not prevent them speaking about their experiences, as many have done. If it were to be opened up so that names, institutions and so on could be mentioned we would end up trying to protect the good name of everybody. That is not what this is about.