Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I hear the criticisms of Tusla. From my engagement with the current legal infrastructure for information and tracing, which we know is insufficient, many of the barriers encountered by people seeking information about their birth mother or siblings result from the inadequacies in the existing information and tracing. That is why we need to change that legislation. If there are situations where there is bad practice in Tusla, as its line Minister I am happy to engage with any Senator in that regard, but the core problem is with the lack of adequate legislation. That is something all present agree is needed. I am happy to engage further directly with Tusla on the specific point raised by Senator Higgins relating to the records.

As regards Sean McDermott Street, I saw that concept design recently. It is very impressive. I need to know more about it. It is quite extensive. There are several elements. Obviously, the city council and the Government are at play. I am happy to engage further in that regard.

Senator Warfield asked about a difference between an initial briefing document given by the Department and the subsequent document. He made the point that the initial document named 11 institutions whereas the latter document named 15 institutions. The difference arises from the fact that the initial document did not list the four county homes. That was a formatting error. The records come from 15 of the 18 mother and baby homes and four of the county homes. My understanding from engagement with the commission is that for three of the homes there were no records available.