Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 8 relates to "records about the person, including correspondence and other records associated with the administrative process surrounding the relevant person’s care". It proposes to extend some of the provisions relating to what information might be provided, including in the administrative process. That would include information on the correspondence between somebody who may have provided care and an institution, for example. In circumstances in which people were boarded out and did work, and in other examples, it would give a texture to what the arrangements were, not the mechanical arrangements for care but, rather, what the relationship was between those who were arranging for such care and those who were providing it. Those are the administrative processes that surround a relevant person’s care.

The amendment seeks to go a bit deeper. It is similar in a way to the question of vaccine trials, whereby persons would be able to access the information about them but also be able to see where they fit into patterns of arrangements. Much of the time people want to understand not just what happened to them but to have some understanding of why it happened to them. The amendment proposes a slight expansion of the kind of information to be provided in relation to care.