Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 December 2020
450. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when he plans to bring forward legislation to provide for the identification of the remains buried in Tuam, County Galway and provide for their respectful reburial; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41348/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy may be aware, on 10 December 2019, the then Government approved the drafting of a Bill along the lines of the General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill 2019. The General Scheme provides for:
- creation of a statutory basis for exhumation of remains, located at former institutional sites which reach a defined set of criteria, including that the form of interment was, at the time it took place, manifestly inappropriate;
- establishment of a legal basis for an Agency of finite duration to carry out an intervention;
- establishment of the legal basis for a programme of forensic analysis of any recovered remains, providing lawful authority for taking samples from the remains as well as from putative close relatives of the deceased for the purpose of familial matching.
Following Government approval last December, the General Scheme was then referred to the Joint Oireachtas Committee (JOC) on Children and Youth Affairs for pre-legislative scrutiny and, in parallel, to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel (OPC) to be drafted as a Bill along the lines outlined. The JOC had scheduled pre-legislative scrutiny but this did not proceed because the Committee was dissolved when the Dáil was dissolved on 14 January.
Although pre-legislative scrutiny has not yet occurred, the OPC have – subject to other significant and often urgent demands on them – proceeded with drafting the Bill in close consultation with Department officials.
I intend to formally re-submit the General Scheme to the JOC on Children, Disability, Integration and Youth early in the new Dáil term so that pre-legislative scrutiny can take place. Following pre-legislative scrutiny, the drafting of the Bill will be completed. Thereafter, I will bring it through the Houses of the Oireachtas. On its passing, there will be a legal basis for works at the site at Tuam to commence.
