Sealing child abuse records is ‘dangerous’

Legislation to seal millions of child abuse records for 75 years was drafted so “all possible provisions” of the National Archives Act, which allows the public or State bodies to access records, would be disapplied.

The Retention of Records Bill 2019 will see records from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA), the Residential Institutions Redress Board, and the Residential Institutions Redress Review Committee placed in the National Archives of Ireland and sealed for a minimum of 75 years, in what has been labelled “a dangerous and unnecessary precedent”.