Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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764. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if her attention has been drawn to concerns that the records of the victims of a mother and baby home (details supplied) in Cork are not being stored safely; if there are plans to digitise the records; and if so, when this will be completed. [37312/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Tusla has advised me that all records held by the Tusla adoption service in Cork, including those related to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Bessborough, are stored in fire proof cabinets in a dry and secure location. Access to records is by Tusla staff only due to the highly confidential nature of the records. Tusla has begun the process of centralising all adoption records held by the Agency to one secure location and it anticipates this will be completed by August 2017.

The Adoption Information and Tracing Bill which was published last Friday provides that the Adoption Authority of Ireland will have overall responsibility for the safeguarding of adoption records, including information relating to informal adoptions and persons whose birth was incorrectly registered. All adoption records, which are currently held in a number of locations, are to be transferred to the custody of the Authority. The Bill provides that the records are to be indexed and a searchable electronic database of the records is to be created.

A working group has been established with representation from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Adoption Authority of Ireland and Tusla in preparation for the commencement of the legislation to consider long term plans for the storage, archiving and scanning of all historical adoption and adoption related records.