Mother and Baby Home Commission recordings retrieved

The offices of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission on Baggot Street, Dublin. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

Recordings of survivor testimony from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation have been retrieved.

It comes in the wake of sustained criticism after the commission said recordings had been deleted last July.

Back-ups were found last week and, in a statement issued late Tuesday evening, it has been confirmed audio recording were retrieved from "off-site storage" and have been deemed to be "accessible and audible" by an IT expert who assessed a random sample of the files.

The commission will now deposit the audio with the Department of Children along with the rest of the archive to Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman, who will become data controller on February 28.

About 80 people have sought for their interview to be redacted. The commission and Government has reiterated their commitment to maintain that anonymity.

Mr O’Gorman said the retrieval of the recordings "now provides another avenue for the people who appeared before the committee to access their personal data".

"If any of the people who appeared before the committee consider that their record is inaccurate or incomplete, they will be able to exercise their GDPR right to rectification with the department once it becomes data controller," he said.

The Social Democrats have tabled a bill to extend the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

It will be debated on Wednesday. The party wants survivors to be given more time to ask questions about their data.

TD Jennifer Whitmore says survivors have questions about how their data and testimonies were reflected in the final report.

"It's really important that survivors are given time, to assess those things and to enable the Data Protection Commissioner to conduct an investigation into the deletion of data," she said.

Sources have confirmed the government will not table a counter motion and the government would abstain on any vote on the bill as they consider the matter resolved with the retrieval of the recordings.