Waterford Green Party TD Marc O'Cathasaigh has criticised how the government has handled a controversial Bill that sends a database created by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission to Tusla.
Members of the Dáil approved the Bill last night amid concerns that survivors will have difficulties accessing the 60,000 records created during a five year State investigation into the homes.
The Tramore Deputy said the government had to act to protect the information, but he was unhappy with how the situation had been handled:
"I am angry on behalf of the people who were so badly treated in the mother and baby homes, and I am angry...with my own government that we did not communicate to these hurt and traumatised people properly to tell them what the intention of this bill was."
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has apologised for his failure “to properly communicate” what the Government is going to do with the report into the homes which is due to be published next week.
“I deeply regret my failure to communicate which caused anxiety,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
The Minister said that when his department saw the value of the information included in the database, he wanted to ensure it was taken out of the archive and given to Tusla to help with their existing tracing processes, saying the aim was to preserve the work of the Commission to aid in the tracing of relatives.
Mr O’Gorman explained that the Commission of investigation into Mother and Baby Homes had worked on the basis of the 2004 Act, meaning records will be sealed for the next 30 year, which he described as "very problematic".
The Bill was passed last night after a vote resulted in 78 in favour and 67 against.
However, Dr Maeve O'Rourke, lecturer in human rights at Maynooth University, says many survivors of the homes just don't have faith in Tusla to do that.
"(They) are saying that they feel discriminated against, patronised and infantilised by the practices that Tusla operates in relation to adoption information.
"They have publicly stated that they consider that they need the consent of a third-party to disclose an adopted person's first name and date of birth, they consider that is third-party information."
The Bill will now go back to the Seanad for consideration after the Government refused to accept any Opposition amendments.
Social Democrat's spokesperson for children, Jennifer Whitmore has urged Mr O'Gorman to insert an amendment into the Bill, allowing EU data protection laws to apply, which will give people impacted by the Mother and Baby Homes the ability to access their own information.
"The Minister still has an opportunity to change this, the Bill is going to the Seanad today so he can still change this, he just needs to insert the primacy of the GDP law within that document, he just needs to say not withstanding everything else in this Bill and in the 2004 Act that EU GDP data protection law reigns supreme here," Ms Whitmore told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland.
Additional reporting from Vivienne Clarke and Muireann Duffy.
