Abuse victims allowed access to State files

A decision to let victims of child abuse access their Government files through children’s charity Barnardo’s was today defended by a minister.

The move, making the charity responsible for the access and management of the files, does not mean the Government will be handing over a complete database to the charity, junior Health and Children Minister Brian Lenihan said.

Fears have already been expressed by an adoption agency over the new arrangement, which allows the charity to mediate in cases of abuse at industrial and reformatory schools.

“We are not handing over a database,” Mr Lenihan said. “The records are in the Department of Education.

“The arrangement we have with Barnardo’s is that Barnardo’s will help victims of child abuse to obtain information and to be helped with any information they need about what happened to them in the past.”

He said Barnardo’s could only access files in the Department of Education with the consent of those who were seeking their help.

“The State has a contract with Barnardo’s to help people who suffered from institutional abuse to that is why Barnardo’s are involved in this area,” he told reporters in Dublin.

“They only have records on that basis and on that basis alone.”

Concerns were raised by the Adopted People’s Association, which claimed the State was entrusting the database entirely to the charity, and that this could result in difficulties for abuse survivors when accessing files.

Susan Lohan, spokeswoman for APA, this morning said the Department of Education was seeking to abdicate responsibility over the files.

A spokesman for Barnardo’s said however that the move in no way interfered with people’s rights to access information from the department of education.

He said the charity would operate the service in an “open and transparent” way.

“We have given a cast-iron guarantee that we will only access the files of those people who have expressly asked us to do that,” he said.

“It is not as though we are browsing the entire database.”

He said he was confident people would get a better service by accessing files through Barnardo’s because of its status as an independent organisation.

It emerged at the weekend that Barnardo’s is to act as a mediator between victims of abuse and the Department of Education.