Written answers

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Department of Health

Departmental Records

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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43. To ask the Minister for Health if he will confirm that material microfilmed under the Access to Institution and Related Records project includes mother and child homes; and that any material from the project data base was given to the Magdalen inquiry. [26882/14]

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Health and Children began the AIRR Project in 2004. Its purpose was to examine the Department’s child care files, find any references to the names of children who were in care and to create an index containing those names. The purpose of the index was to facilitate efficient and thorough searches and retrieval of records on behalf of individuals seeking their own personal information in the context of Freedom of Information legislation, Court Orders of Discovery and applications to the Residential Institutions Redress Board. The Project involved the indexing of all papers held by the Department relating to child care services, some of which contain information referring to individual children who were in care. The personal information references have been indexed onto a specialised ‘names index’ along with other relevant information.

The Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries considered the routes of entry to the Magdalen Laundries, including from Mother and Baby Homes, and my Department and the HSE conducted searches of retained records for any relevant information. All relevant information and records discovered in this context were passed in full to the Inter-Departmental Committee's Secretariat. The Report of the Committee shows that of cases for which routes of entry are known 3.9% of admissions were from mother and baby homes. In 2003/4 a number of files were microfilmed. However, the initiative was discontinued as it failed to meet the business needs of the Department.

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