Abuse files must be preserved

I READ with interest your report headlined ‘Year delay before abuse inquiry decides on documents’ (July 5).

The very idea that any documents related to the Ryan Commission would be destroyed is deeply concerning. These documents — all of them — constitute part of the nation’s heritage and, as such, they should be preserved and protected so that future generations never forgot the past while also ensuring no repetition of it.

Survivors of the state’s residential institutions, moreover, are deeply divided, indeed sceptical, regarding the Redress Board and Ryan Commission process. One must ask therefore who precisely is being served by destroying documents?