Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 November 2021
418. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 137 of 17 November 2021, the reason the deaths in institutions including Bessborough and Tuam are not considered potentially violent or unnatural for the purpose of inquests under the existing Coroners Act, bearing in mind their numbers and the absence of burial records. [58368/21]
View answer419. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 137 of 17 November 2021, if the power of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications under section 46 of the Local Government (Sanitary Services) Act 1948 can be used to licence exhumation for the purpose of coroner’s inquests, bearing in mind this power was used to sanction the exhumation and cremation of all but one of 155 Magdalene women’s bodies in 1993 in circumstances in which many were not even identified with death certificates. [58369/21]
View answer420. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 137 of 17 November 2021, if exhumation is achieved, do the existing purposes of a coroner’s inquest include identification of the deceased such that DNA testing could be carried out. [58370/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 418 to 420, inclusive, together.
The final report of the Commission of Investigation, which was published in January 2021, was shared with An Garda Síochána. I am aware that the An Garda Síochána carefully considered the Commission's final report and determined that there was insufficient information available in the report to commence criminal investigation. In April 2021 An Garda Síochána invited anyone who was the victim of a criminal act arising out of the Mother and Baby Homes, or who had information likely to assist an investigation into a criminal act committed at a Mother and Baby Home, to come forward and report this so that such crimes can be investigated where possible.
The publication of the Commission’s report followed on from confirmation by the Commission, in March 2017, of the presence of juvenile human remains at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam. In response, the then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs commissioned an Expert Technical Group (ETG) to outline the options available for responding appropriately to the situation. One of the key challenges highlighted by the ETG in its report, which was published in December 2017, was the absence of an oversight body, party or state agency to lead the decision-making process in this context.
Policy and legislation regarding exhumation or coronial inquests under the Local Government (Sanitary Services) Act 1948 or the Coroner’s Act 1962, respectively, are not matters under the remit of my Department. However, the decision to develop the General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill took into account the findings of the Expert Technical Group and the advice of the Attorney General, which underlined the need for a single statutory authority to oversee the full programme of intervention (including excavation, exhumation, identification and reinternment) required at the Tuam site and other locations should similar circumstances come to light. The Deputy may wish to note that existing coronial legislation makes no provision for a DNA identification process for sites such as the one at Tuam, and which is set out in the General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill published by my Department earlier this year.
I would also like to highlight that under the proposed legislation where the Director overseeing the intervention at a site recovers remains, which show evidence of violent or unnatural death, the Director must immediately inform the coroner within whose district the remains were recovered and An Garda Síochána.
