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No “obstacles or barriers” are foreseen for the release of the Maternal and Child Homes Inquiry Commission report, which was delivered Friday, the Taoiseach said.
Speaking on Friday afternoon, Micheál Martin said that “the government does not anticipate obstacles or barriers to his release.”
“We are not looking at this from the perspective of barriers to publication, but from the perspective of allowing this to be published as soon as possible,” he said.
Mr. Martin also said that the State “would not consider itself deficient in terms of a comprehensive response.” When asked if he would consider an apology from the state, he said it was “not ruling out anything at all.”
The Taoiseach repeated that the Government intended to create an institution to act as a repository for records related to mother and child homes, Magdalene laundries and industrial schools.
“The Government is committed to making this center a reality. And that, obviously, would also connect with the national archives, so we would have a very modern facility to allow people to access the records, both on a personal level and in terms of an academic perspective ”, and for the general public. “Have an idea of what happened in different times in the past in various centers and institutions.”
He said he had met on Friday morning with groups involved in the issue of maternal and child homes to discuss issues related to access to records and the rights granted by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), powerful laws of the UE that were transposed to Irish. law in 2018. The discussion also focused, he said, on “the legislative agenda that is required in terms of obtaining statutory access to records for people in general.”
“We discussed at a preliminary level the nature of that legislation and the framework around that legislation.”
The commission’s report was received by Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman on Friday after more than 10 days of controversy over access to records. The government initially argued last week that access rights under GDPR would be prohibited by the Commissions of Investigations Act of 2004, under which the commission of homes for mothers and babies was created. However, this week the government changed its policy in this regard.
When asked about legal advice provided in the run-up to this policy change, an O’Gorman spokesperson said the department engaged with the Attorney General’s office after receiving the commission’s sixth interim report, which it received in February. The Attorney General was contacted “about important issues raised by the commission of inquiry regarding access to a valuable database that it had created in the course of its work,” said a spokesman for the Minister.
“This implied the consideration of the Investigation Commissions Act of 2004.”
It is understood that the Attorney General’s Office provided extensive advice regarding the database and non-disclosure of records, and that this was interpreted by departmental legal advisers as support for a general prohibition. Following that commitment, the department’s advice to the Minister was that “access to the file produced by the commission via GDPR is expressly prohibited.”
However, following contact by the Data Protection Commissioner on October 19, the department requested further advice from the Attorney General’s office.
The Attorney General then provided oral advice in the Cabinet and subsequently provided written advice to the department, “clarifying that the amended 2004 Law does not prevent the department from considering data requests, which must respect the GDPR.”
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