Sinn Féin calls for gardaí to investigate Mother and Baby Homes report leak

Details of the report, which is due to be published later this week, were revealed in a Sunday newspaper

Sinn Fein's Kathleen Funchion says gardaí could have a role in investigating the leak of the Mother and Baby Homes report. File picture: Gareth Chaney, Collins

Sinn Fein says "there is a role for gardai" in finding the leak of the Mother and Baby Homes report.

Excerpts from the 3,000-page report, due on Tuesday, were leaked to a Sunday newspaper.

Sinn Féin's spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs Kathleen Funchion has written to the Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman to ask whether he has contacted the gardaí over the leak of the report, which had been given to the three party leaders Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister Eamon Ryan before Christmas.

The Taoiseach was quoted in the piece, raising questions over whether he knew the report had been leaked and did not inform his minister, who wrote to survivors telling them he was "deeply angered" about how details of the report were made public.

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on children Kathleen Funchion says it’s a criminal offence to leak information from a Commission of Investigation and wants Roderic O’Gorman to refer the info to Gardaí pic.twitter.com/3KmDhDwIzg

— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) January 11, 2021

Sinn Féin claims that under the Commission of Investigation Act, the leak could have been a criminal offence.

"We have written to the minister on whether he has contacted gardaí in relation to this because there needs to be accountability. There shouldn't have been a leak, it's not acceptable in this situation and the content of the report.

"At the very least survivors need to see some level of accountability, whatever follow-up is made, they're not going to ever see people prosecuted or in jail for the offences against them over the years and the very least they need to see now is accountability that it's not acceptable to leak their information and personal stories in such an insensitive manner," Ms Funchion said.

"I can't believe it happened after everything that happened after October with such outrage and outcry."

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has called for a full investigation into the leaking of the Mother and Baby Homes report and the person responsible "held to account", describing it as "disrespectful" to survivors.

I am deeply angered to see sensitive details of the Commission Report leaked in a newspaper this morning. It is completely unacceptable that the people affected by the Report have found out elements of the Report in this way.

— Roderic O’Gorman TD (@rodericogorman) January 10, 2021

Ms Funchion said the issue was a wider problem within the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Government.

It has been said over the last few months this Government is particularly leaky. This is very different, this is a criminal offence, the nature of this and sensitivity and current experience of survivors need to be taken into account. 

"I do think there's a role for gardaí to be involved with that," she said.

"As you can imagine, survivors and their families have been devastated

"We know how badly they've been treated by the State in the first place, people were imprisoned and suffered horrific abuse in these institutions.

"We're now six years later, with the report delayed. In October, we had legislation rushed through, and the sealing of the records and on top of it all information leaked at the weekend.

"We said repeatedly we did not want to see survivors reading [about the report] in the newspaper.

"It goes to show survivors are continuously let down, they have zero confidence in the State doing the right thing by them.

"The State had a key role in this as well and knew what was going on."