Survivors welcome 'overdue' legislation aimed at preserving institutional records
Many survivors 'are very unhappy that religious congregations still hold the records that they don't have access to', said special advocate for survivors Patricia Carey.
Survivors' groups have welcomed "overdue" legislation which has been brought forward to ensure that privately-held records concerning Ireland's institutional past are preserved.
The legislation would see criminal sanctions brought against any person or private organisation for the destruction or removal of records.
It would also require such individuals or organisations to produce an inventory of the records they hold upon request by the National Archives of Ireland.
The proposals would relate to records from the Magdalene laundries, mother-and-baby as well as county home institutions, industrial schools, orphanages, adoption agencies, and boarding out arrangements, as well as bodies that ran or oversaw these institutions.
The legislation would affect around a quarter of a million people, according to special advocate for survivors Patricia Carey.
To have an inventory of what records currently exist, and where, is significant because at the moment the full extent of records being held by private and religious institutions it is not known, said Ms Carey.
"A lot of them are very unhappy that religious congregations still hold the records that they don't have access to," she said.
The proposed legislation follows calls from survivors who expressed significant and serious concerns about access to personal records and information related to their experience in institutions.
Issues covered by the legislation were considered by the Legal and Legislative Subgroup working on the development of the central repository of records to be held in the National Centre for Research and Remembrance.
Placing an obligation on private records holders to preserve records would ensure that future access to these records is not rendered impossible.
A recent report published by the National Centre for Research and Remembrance Consultation Findings steering group highlighted the "concern centred around the belief that the Church may have destroyed documents or, in the case that some remain intact, that the Church or institutions would not be willing to give them to the centre".
Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman said the proposed legislation will be brought forward as amendments to the Maternity Protection Bill at committee stage in an effort to allow it to travel as quickly as possible.
Mr O'Gorman said the hope is that it will have completed all stages early next month.
The Green Party leader denied that the timing of the proposals is linked to the possibility of a general election being called over the coming weeks and instead said the urgency is down to academics reaching out with cited examples of incidents where institutional records were "left to literally mould and rot in buildings".
"We are looking to get this legislation passed rapidly because there is a concern out there — and there examples cited where materials have been damaged and may not be available in future — so it is on that basis that we are looking to move quickly," said Mr O'Gorman.
Justice for Magdalenes Research, Adoption Rights Alliance, and the Clann Project raised their worry that if there were a long lead-in time to the introduction of legislation, it would "give more opportunity to records-holders to destroy their archives or remove them from the jurisdiction".
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