Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is my first time speaking today but I spoke on Wednesday's Second Stage debate as well. The testimony and experience of the people who have spoken today is very powerful and there is a wealth of experience among all of us. Senator Bacik mentioned she has represented people before the institutional abuse redress board and Senator Boyhan spoke very passionately earlier. However, this is about justice for the survivors and families of the survivors.

The question was asked if we had spoken with survivors and it was mentioned earlier today that there was a meeting of Galway County Council about this issue. It is true we had the opportunity, which I spoke about on Wednesday as well, to hear from four survivors and members of families of survivors. They spoke to the whole council that day in a very shocking and emotional way. I have spoken since with the representative of that organisation, who has spoken about the support she has received above and beyond from that local authority and that the site has been kept in such a pristine condition. There must be engagement at all levels in trying to support these alliances of people who are discovering and want justice.

We are speaking about amendments but delaying the Bill will delay the report and leave no legislation in place to transfer the information uncovered by the commission to any other organisation. In other words, it will be gone. All the valuable work completed over the past number of months will be gone. The original records still exist and all that is in the database are the original records within each of the agencies.

The Minister mentioned extra funds have been allocated to Tusla. Will there be funds for some of the groups that are looking to access the information? I know the Minister will bring forward legislation relating to birth and tracing information but will there be funds for groups trying to access this information through many different agencies? Many of these alliance groups comprise volunteers and the challenge for them is that although the records exist, it takes time to access them from all the different sources, including local authorities and State agencies. There is a step we can take as a Government to support these groups in some way. That is as well as waiting for the legislation that will come to pass to allow them to access the information in a better way. That currently does not exist.

The database will be protected and preserved. It will be available through Tusla and it will not have an impact on future attempts to access the information once we introduce legislation. That is what these Houses are for and it is what we can do. We can bring forward the legislation to allow access by these people, including survivors and family members.

I ask that this Bill be supported and passed so the report can issue and survivors and families of survivors can have access to the report as soon as possible.