Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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156. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will outline how the proposed legislation on the preservation of private records will operate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43394/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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This proposed legislation, which I am bringing forward as Committee Stage Amendments to the Maternity Protection Bill, provides for the preservation of defined categories of records held by private actors, so that they are preserved in the public interest.  

The private actors would include anyone who holds records relating to Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions, Magdalen laundries, industrial schools and reformatories, and orphanages, as well as the bodies who ran or oversaw these institutions. It also includes records relating to those who were involved in placing people for adoption, into a care arrangement, into an institution, or with the persons who assumed the role of parents to them, in the case of illegal birth registration. 

It would place an obligation on any private holder of a relevant record to preserve it, making it an offence to destroy, mutilate, falsify, or fail to maintain relevant records, or to export them from the State. 

The legislation also provides that the Director of the National Archives may direct a person or body to provide a statement outlining the relevant records in their possession. The inclusion of this provision will increase the ability of the State to assess the level and type of records that exist in private hands and inform any potential future legislative measures in the area of mandating deposit of records or copies of records.

This legislation has been called for by survivors and former residents, affected persons, their families and advocates, who want to ensure that records, which support understanding of their identity and the institutional systems which shaped their life experiences in such significant ways, are preserved.