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More than 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for the seal of the testimonies in the archives of survivors of maternal and child homes to be lifted.
Aitheantas, the adoptee rights group, only submitted the petition on Friday on the site Uplift.ie, but is already rapidly approaching its goal of 75,000 signatures.
Follow the clamor that arose from the coalition TD’s vote Thursday night to seal the records for thirty years.
This was despite calls from other TDs and survivors for amendments to the Mother and Baby Homes Bill, which passed 78 to 67 votes and all but two non-governmental TDs opposed.
In addition to a database that is sent to the children’s and family agency, Tusla, the records will be sealed for the next 30 years.
The opposition DTs hoped to allow the survivors of the system to decide whether their names and testimonies should be revealed, but their amendments were rejected.
Holly Cairns, TD of the Southwest Cork Social Democrats, said it was a shame that, following pleas from survivors, the government refused to consider even one of the more than 60 opposition amendments.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman said his advice from the Attorney General was that access to records had been explicitly restricted by the Commissions of Inquiry Act of 2004.
But, as the reported today, the Data Protection Commission’s office told the government ahead of Thursday’s vote that the Data Protection Act of 2018 explicitly amended the Commissions of Inquiry Act of 2004.
This was, he said, so that any restriction on the right of access to personal data processed by the Commission can only be implemented to the extent necessary and proportionate to safeguard the effective functioning of the commissions and the future cooperation of witnesses.
Maree Ryan-O’Brien, founder of Aitheantas, said that “access to information for survivors and adoptees has been denied for decades.
“It takes power away from survivors and perpetuates state abuse and narrow views of the past. We need to get over this and let survivors and adoptees recover.”
The petition is simply phrased as “repeal the seal to allow adoptees and survivors to open the file.”
And he explains why this is important: “For the first time, the Irish people can see for themselves the callousness with which the Irish State has treated women, children and survivors who came through maternal and child homes, homes for babies, industrial schools who are denied access to their own testimony, files and records, this must stop. “
An online group has also joined the campaign to stop the sealing of the records of Mother and Baby Home survivors.
The artists group, a multidisciplinary group that works across the country, says it hopes to take “collective action” in response to the bill.
In a statement, the group said: “We wanted to respond with urgency and anger following the government’s refusal to take amendments and its dismissal of the wishes of the survivors, the council of the data protection commissioner and human rights experts.”
“We believe in the power of artistic actions and the power of art as a force for social change.
“We cannot do a physical mass protest at this time, so we wanted to act online in solidarity with the survivors and those affected, which could be replicated by others who felt the same.”
“We meet at the zoom and decide to do a simple hand gesture; you raise your hand when you want to be heard.
“The eye symbolizes the ever-vigilant citizen who sees injustice and wants it to be addressed.
The group said they wanted to “add our voices to those of activists who have been working tirelessly to amplify this issue.”
“We wanted to speak directly with the survivors to let them know that they were seen and heard and to remind the government that we would not forget it,” the group’s statement added.
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