I want the Minister for Education and Science to explain to this House on what legal basis and when, how and why he decided to hand computer copies of 41,000 files of former residents of residential institutions, such as industrial schools, to a non-governmental organisation, the Barnardo's charity. These are highly sensitive, personal files of residents of residential institutions run by religious orders. Many such residents were treated in an appalling way during their stay in these institutions – beaten, starved and deprived of family life, and a horrific number were subject to depraved sexual abuse. In light of what we know now, how could the Minister and the Department of Education and Science decide to hand over copies of these files to an NGO without public debate or discussion on the pros and cons of such an arrangement? Not only was there no debate in the Dáil, but former residents and organisations representing them seem to have been told little or nothing of this scheme.
The current arrangement is that former residents or their legal representatives can access their records directly from the Department of Education and Science. The Department of Education and Science is properly subject to the Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Ombudsman Act, and the Official Secrets Act. Will the NGO that received these records be subject to these laws, both to protect the confidentiality of these records and to guarantee all former residents of these institutions access to all their personal records?
What of former residents who do not wish for their own personal reasons to use the services of the NGO? Have they recourse to the Department? Has a legal arrangement been put in place with Barnardo's? Were the financial arrangements and the moneys paid and those to be paid to the NGO subject to a tender or contract process?
Barnardo's is a highly reputable NGO and my concern is not with it but with this extraordinary decision of the Minister. The Minister and the Taoiseach have made much of the State's apology to former residents and their concern to promote redress, healing and closure for former residents. In reality the Government has been more concerned with protecting the concerns of the religious orders that ran and controlled these institutions.
Much of the abuse that occurred happened because of the powerlessness and poverty of the residents compared with the magisterial authority and power of the Catholic Church in the first 50 years of the State. Belatedly, the State has acknowledged its share of the responsibility for these abuses but now it proposes to again treat former residents as objects without power, where decisions on their personal records can be made by the Department of Education and Science in secret without reference to them, the Dáil or the wider public.
I am informed that the Minister for Health and Children may be exploring similar proposals to give the adoption records of 40,000 people to Barnardo's without reference to organisations representing people who have been adopted, such as the Adopted People's Association, APA. For the State to take unilateral decisions on such sensitive personal information is a scandal.
A further issue which needs to be clarified is the Minister's transfer of computer copies of the records to the Laffoy Commission and possibly the Residential Institutions Redress Board. I ask the Minister if these include records of convictions in respect of former residents of institutions. In some cases, former residents of institutions were committed to these institutions on foot of having been found guilty as children of a range of often minor offences by District Courts. What are the implications of this for the commission and the redress board in terms of decisions they may reach on the treatment of former residents? Many of those who were convicted of offences as children would seriously question that they were guilty of anything other than poverty and powerlessness. The Government should initiate a full and open debate and dialogue on these arrangements. Outsourcing those records is not acceptable without full consultation and debate with those affected. Can the Minister of State explain why a full State records service is not the most appropriate way of addressing these very sensitive and important issues for the individuals concerned?