Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 November 2020
153. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 591 of 22 September 2020, if he will provide detailed responses to questions raised in correspondence (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38901/20]
View answerThe Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (The Ryan Report) was published on 20 May 2009. Where the records of children in care are concerned, the Ryan Report recommended that reports, files and records essential to validate the child’s identity and their social, family and educational history must be retained (recommendation 7.20).
Following the publication of the Report a detailed Implementation Plan was prepared and published in July 2009. Of the ninety-nine actions contained in the Ryan Report Implementation Plan, ninety-five are now complete. The two outstanding actions referred to in the original Parliamentary Question (No. 591 of 22 September 2020) are the responsibility of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.
These actions, which are aimed at ensuring the records of people who have been in care are stored securely and are available to those to whom they relate in future, are being addressed by Tusla through the ongoing development of the National Childcare Information System (NCCIS). The Agency has implemented the NCCIS to maintain records of children in care. The NCCIS has been fully implemented in all Tusla areas and is the central repository/ archive for current children in care records. Tusla has also successfully completed the data migration to the NCCIS of all historical children in care records held in legacy ICT systems formerly managed by the HSE. The NCCIS programme and subsequent successful migration projects represent significant progress on the implementation of the relevant actions.
Tusla has advised that further initiatives are planned under the Tusla Data Management Strategy 2019-2022 to extend the NCCIS repository to cover the registration of historical children in care paper files held by the Agency. This includes completing an audit of all paper file locations and recording high-level information on the NCCIS, such as the child’s details, as well as references to the physical location of all related paper files.
Historical children in care records, which were held by the HSE, transferred to Tusla with the establishment of the Agency under the Child and Family Agency Act 2013. These records date back to the 1970s when the health boards were established. Examples of care records held by Tusla are care orders; birth certificates; admission to care records; daily logs; key working records; care plans; family history; risk assessments; medical records; records of significant events; complaints; and education records. While the records of industrial and reformatory schools are, for the most part, maintained by the Department of Education, records relating to one industrial school held by the HSE also transferred to Tusla on establishment.
Tusla has advised that it has recently appointed a National Records Manager and is establishing a Records Management Unit. This new unit is tasked with assessing the feasibility, dependencies and budgetary requirements in relation to the outstanding elements of the relevant actions in the Ryan Report Implementation Plan. Tusla will complete a paper on the outcome of this work in 2021 to inform the decision-making process in relation to advancing these actions.
Individuals who were previously in care can seek access to their personal records from Tusla either under Freedom of Ireland (FOI) or Data Protection legislation. Guidance around how to submit FOI and Subject Access Requests is available on the Tusla website as follows:
Tusla Freedom of Information Request Guide: https://www.tusla.ie/about/your-personal-information/new-freedom-of-information/#how
Tusla Data Subject Records Request Portal: https://www.tusla.ie/about/your-personal-information/new-data-protection/
Separately, the Deputy will be aware that the Government has recently committed to working to establish, on a formal, national basis an archive of records related to institutional trauma during the 20th century. The National Archive will include historical institutional records. It will be designed in cooperation with professional archivists and historians, as well as with victims, survivors and their advocates. DCEDIY are working with the Department of the Taoiseach to advance this further.
