GOVERNMENT proposals to seal mother and baby home records for 30 years will stifle the voices of a group of women who were silenced for far too long.
That’s the view of Limerick Sinn Féin Senator Paul Gavan who, in a Seanad debate last week, said that the Government maintained that sealing the records was necessary on technical data protection and legal grounds.
However, Senator Gavan argued that legislation was already in place through the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 to deal with those concerns.
“The intention is to transfer part of the Commission of Investigations archive to the child and family agency Tusla, without keeping a copy, as well as plans to seal the remainder of the archive for a period of 30 years is a major concern,” he said.
“It is shocking to see the new Green Party Minister rush through this legislation. I am sure it is not what people voted Green for in the recent election. Minister O’Gorman is proposing to chop off a huge amount of records in relation to the mother and baby homes that held women for decades.
“There are huge concerns over the lack of consultation regarding this Bill, and there are serious questions as to why Minister O’Gorman is proceeding with this approach. It is unthinkable that these records – which are key to understanding the State’s failings of the past – will be locked away for 30 years, effectively for another generation.
“Forcing young women into these homes was ultimately about power then, and it is about State power now. It was about class politics, with the poorest and working class women mostly making up those who were held and hidden away by the powers of the time.
“These mother and baby homes affected tens of thousands. Those who survived these institutions as well as those who didn’t survive and their families are entitled to justice, entitled to truth and entitled to these records,” Senator Gavan concluded.
