Seanad debates

Friday, 16 October 2020

Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

10:30 am

Photo of Alice-Mary HigginsAlice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would appreciate it if the Minister would include it. Other Members have spoken on the wider issues, and I spoke about them at the beginning of this debate. Tusla's record has not been good. However, I have not received replies on the other issues I queried. I urge the Minister to give me a response to them and if he cannot, he needs to be able to deal with those issues and respond to them in the Dáil. Is there any guarantee that the documents that might be given to Tusla will be kept to the standard that is appropriate for a place of deposit and that they will be kept in one place and copies only made as required? The documents transferred to Tusla must be kept in one location. I mentioned this with regard to the Adoption Authority, but I now ask the Minister this question specifically in respect of Tusla. The 2017 legislation on the Adoption Authority set out how these would be treated but this Bill does not do that.

It is clear that the Minister will put forward amendments in the Dáil and I urge him to look to the language on the Adoption Authority in the 2017 Act because we must be assured, and I have not yet received any such assurance from the Minister, that the records given to Tusla with the database will be kept in a single location. The Minister answered me about the ICT capacity. I spoke to one of his advisers and was again told about the ICT capacity and GDPR. I am talking about the physical copies of the records being kept in a unified place. I realise originals are with documents, but they are scattered across the massive apparatus of the State and its many bodies. Will they be kept in one place and will they be kept to a strong archival standard? Again, I do not believe Tusla is the right place for this, but, in the interim of one or two years or however long it might be before an appropriate place is found, we want to ensure that we do not lose cohesion in these documents and see valuable records lost.

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