Carlow Kilkenny TD says “There’s huge anger, frustration & hurt” with regards to the Bill on the Mother & Baby Home records
Kathleen Funchion is calling on Minister Roderic O'Gorman to explain why he allowed the Bill to be passed
Tusla cannot be trusted with the files from Mother and Baby Homes inquiry, so says a local TD.
Over 188,000 people have signed a petition calling for the records to be made public.
It’s after a Bill passed last week, the files are set to remain under wraps for 30 years, with a limited database to be made available through Tusla.
But Sinn Fein’s Kathleen Funchion says many survivors don’t want the information to go to that organisation outlining “The Minister was unsure exactly what is being given to Tusla, apart from the database, so we don’t exactly know what information, like for some people they might not be anything of value or of help in that information and for others who have gone through this process, you know, they said it’s taken them years and years and years and that they’re really getting met by a lot of closed doors, a lot of obstruction, they’re the people that have gone through it and are saying that the organisation is not in any way helpful to them”.
Deputy Funchion, who fought against the measure, is calling on Minister Roderic O’Gorman to explain why he allowed the Bill to be passed saying “There’s huge anger and, I think, a combination of frustration & hurt as well from survivors and their families and I think the public have really gotten behind them, like we have called now, there was some information on Friday evening about the data protection commissioner having given advice that would have seemed to have been ignored by the Minister, by the department, so we’ve actually asked the Minister to come into the Dáil as a priority to clarify exactly what advice he was given”.
She adds it’s hurtful to survivors that their information will now be handled by Tusla noting “I don’t think it’s going to be of any help, you know, using an organisation that people don’t have any faith in or don’t have any trust or confidence in and they’ve very, very clearly said that, that it’s not the organisation that they believe should have their information, certainly they’re adamant that they don’t want the information going to Tusla and I think they have their reasons for that in terms of how they’ve been dealt with before in relation to that organisation”.
