Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be concise. I wish to echo what Senator Higgins has said. I fully support her call for a preliminary report while we await the final one and for redress to happen in parallel with the ongoing process. When I read the latest interim report, I was startled to discover that the HSE and what was previously the north western health board was intensively involved in the running of an institution under investigation, The Castle in County Donegal, as recently as 2006 but has been unable to provide any documentation. That is a cause for concern on a number of levels, not only for this investigation but for other areas too. The HSE, which is a public body, has said that it is unable to provide information to the investigation. In that context, should we be concerned that other bodies like Tusla, to which the HSE is transferring data, will also be a line in a report to the effect that information requested does not exist or is inaccessible? What is happening with regard to The Castle in Donegal? Does the Government simply accept it when the HSE says that it has no information or does it investigate further to determine why it has no information pertaining to an institution with which it was heavily involved? Either this is a sinister matter and the HSE has refused to supply or has destroyed the information or it was completely incompetent and kept no information up until the early 2000's. I am not talking here about the 1940s, 1950s or even the 1960s. I am talking about the period between 1984 and 2006. I do not understand that line in the interim report and ask the Minister to provide more information on it and to outline what the impact might be in the context of the Information and Tracing Bill 2016.