Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak generally if I can, because I had ten amendments and they have all been ruled out of order because of a cost on the Exchequer. If Members do not mind the cliché, I personally think this is a bit of a cop-out. I refer to Senator Norris's attempts to get some legislation through. We are meant to be the Upper House of the Oireachtas and we are not allowed to talk about tuppence, which is absolutely ridiculous. It closes us down.

In my amendments, I was trying to bring about a sea change in the Bill, because the Bill has a major omission. The omission is the history of women and the history of men in this country. We are running around the country apologising to people for the way they have been treated, the way institutions, establishments and people have treated them under the auspices of the State. However, those apologies seem very weak when it comes to something like this Bill. Let us consider the Magdalen laundries, the mother and baby homes, the industrial schools, the county homes and the adoption agencies. There should be a place for them in the National Archives. I will not be easily dismissed here, because this is the history of our country, and much of our archives are in private ownership.How can the State monitor or regulate archival material in private ownership? That has been the position historically and continues to be. Even if we were looking at direct provision, it would give space for breach of regulation, although I am not saying it is doing so. Our archival history has been in private hands and this should be mentioned in the Bill. The archival history of women and men in this country should be under the canopy of the National Archives. When I am handed neatly over to the Department of Education and Skills and told that that is where it will happen, I know that is a wipe because in respect of the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the Ryan report, for example, which commission ended in 2009, the archives cannot be opened for 75 years when many of the people involved will be well gone. It is a situation where it is made every other Department's problem.

To be fair, I can see the problem for the Department. These archives straddle 1,000 departments. It is what the academics call interdisciplinary. It is a big word, but it really is a polymorphic term. It means a big tree and that everybody can come in under it. If we look at children who spent time in residential and training centres, they would come under the Department of Justice and Equality, as would the Magdalen laundries, while mother and baby homes would come under the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and possibly even mental hospitals when it comes to psychiatry.

The process has to start and I suggest the Department and perhaps the Minister might give me a bit of a steer. I am going to bring forward a Private Members' Bill on this subject in the autumn because I understand it is a complex problem. It has thousands of radii in the one circle and tentacles, but that is not a reason to say we could not start it or try to do it. The National Archives is a place where much of this information comes within data protection. There are many people in Ireland today who do not know who they are, where they came from and what they are. They have a right to know within the law and a right not to have to queue. Within data protection and all of the protective constraints, there is a need to allow them to be free. I thought it was a major omission, but I am not accusing; rather, I am suggesting we look at ways by which we could create that platform or path in the future. I am going to start that process and I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on it. It would be a brilliant thing to do for her Department which could be the conduit for other Departments in whatever way it is right for them to come in and do so within the law. This is a major omission. We cannot have people's records in boxes in attics and rooms for which there is no key. People have to be able to access information to know who they are. Most of the time we are confused about who we are, even when we know. It is important for women, men and young people. It is important for the country's great archives.

Ms Catriona Crowe gave a brilliant dean's lecture in Maynooth in which she spoke about this issue, not in an accusative way but in a way in which she made reference to Ireland as a grown up country - we are talking 100 years on from independence - with strength in outlining what we did badly and what we did well and being able to hold it together. It is what the poet Seamus Heaney told us all about. He brought us all back down and gave us a sense of ourselves through our natural world which we tend to forget because we are so busy watching televised rubbish from other countries. I say this from my background in the arts, history and language and communications. As I said, it is an omission from the Bill. I know that it did not set out to make it, but I am flagging it as something that is coming down the tracks. It is not going to go away. We need a place, an archival treasure house to store all of the great history of the women and men of this country, especially of people who do not know their history.