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TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR told the Dáil today that he cannot make a commitment that the term of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission will be extended beyond the end of the month.
A number of TDs and Senators asked if the Commission’s term could be extended beyond the 28 February in order to answer some outstanding queries, in particular, the concerns around the destruction of recordings of the women’s testimonies.
A number of witnesses have also said there are inaccuracies in how their testimonies are presented in the Commission’s final report.
People Before Profit’s Bríd Smith said she was appealing to the Tánaiste today to ensure that the term of the commission is extended.
She said survivors are calling for the extension, appealing to Varadkar to “do your best to get this done”.
“We’ve let them down with the commission report, we’ve let them down massively by destroying their records, their own records without their permission. Can we please do this one thing, and extend the lifetime of the commission to allow investigations into what happened those precious records,” said Smith.
Varadkar told the Dáil that in his view, the commission “did a good job”, but acknowledged there were some “big flaws” Varadkar said.
“One big flaw is the fact that when the commission reports, it reports. And it’s almost left to the government to explain the report, even though it was not our report,” he said.
He said the second flaw is that many of the survivors didn’t get the opportunity to tell their story in public, like they wanted to.
Varadkar said the Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman is liaising closely with the commission and the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) “to ensure these matters can be appropriately addressed by the Commission and the minister is committed to having robust processes in place for the management of the archive”.
Additional time
O’Gorman is “exploring all avenues that would best serve the interests of survivors”, said Varadkar, adding ”at this point it’s his view that additional time wouldn’t assist in any way”.
When asked about the extension again by Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore, he said:
“I’m not saying that we wont to extend it, I’m saying that the minister is giving that consideration, but that if we do extend it, we want to know that it’s actually going to serve a purpose, to help us solve the problem that has arisen around the audio recordings. We don’t know if they’re recoverable or not. I think that that’s the question.”
O’Gorman is engaged with the commission, the DPC, and the Attorney General on the matter of the possibility of an extension, said Varadkar.
He said such a move raises legal questions and has implications for the operation of future commissions.
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Can they not use IT experts to recover the audio?! Unless they recorded the testimonies on tapes using a dictaphone and someone smashed and burnt the tapes I cannot see a reason why the recordings aren’t recoverable.
Also there are plenty of reasons to extend some of which are:
1. The survivors want this
2. The general public wants this
3. Your commission made as grave errors
4. Your commission went against GDPR by deleting the audio
@VocalAlbatross:
Agree. Deleting audio files from hard drives etc can be recovered unless the drives are broken up. Were they broken up??
Political words = LIES.
Leo the Liar
#LeoTheLiar
LIES LIES AND MORE LIES.
Use the extension to find those ‘missing’ audio recordings!
Anything that comes out of Leo’s mouth is lies
It will of course serve a purpose. So long as the Commission isnt dissolved, anyone who destroyed evidence of the Commission is guilty of an offence under S.31 of the Commission Act 2004. It also means that the DPC can continue to investigate to breach of GDPR & Domestic Data Protection Law, and fine the parties guilty of this.
This commission was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish.
It’s purpose was deflect responsibility from those responsible for the horrific abuse committed by religious orders with the support of the state; without a scrap of sympathy for the victims of the abuse.
Roderic O’Gorman is a failed politician.
Were the members of the commission paid to fulfill their roles? I presume they didn’t do it for the good of their health. As paid employees I cannot understand how they can refuse to meet the Government to talk about the work they carried out. You wouldn’t find that in any other workplace.
This guy is disingenuous.
Leo need not worry about implications for the operation of future commissions. , nobody in their right mind would co operate with a commission when their words are not reflected as given and recorded evidence is destroyed, we know how it works now, the victims would have been better served to stand on an orange box under the GPO and tell their own accounts , then the world would sit up and take notice “We hold these truths to be self evident”.
Talk about double-speak, “the commission did “a good job” with some “big flaws”. These politicians are really testing the patience of the Irish people.
If you “delete” a file from a harddrive, it’s still there, and it’s trivial to retrieve. If it’s wiped, and has data written over it deliberately to make it unrecoverable, you can still recover some of the data if it’s uncompressed, unencrypted and you have the right equipment.
It sounds to me like they went to some trouble to destroy that information. And it seems to have happened rather rapidly, especially considering the public interest in the records. Somebody is clearly interested in sweeping something under the rug.
The question is what purpose has it served up to now?
Yesterday Minister O’Gorman said the report “does not represent a conclusion – rather, it represents the backdrop for the State’s apology to those who have suffered and also a starting point from which we can move forward”?????????????
This conclusion was only reached because all evidence was destroyed by those parties seeking their legal cost. From taxpayers including survivors.
Can’t wait till April when the IBRC Commission of Investigation final report is published. Mothers and babies ‘conclusion’ costs so far is 10 million. IBRC Commission setup also in 2015 has so far costed 70 million. What excuse this time for all evidence having being destroyed?
Cover up protecting tds @ senators from the past church telling what to do
Horrible person
Disgraceful Leo is really living up to his name Leo the liar
From the testimony of those who were deprived of a parent, beaten, molested and made feel sinful. They say that what they said is not what is documented.
When the audio record does not match the written record. The audio record is destroyed. This is crazy that a government would try to justify this.with ‘sure ye all knew it’d be deleted, arrah arrah.’
Its disgusting the media roll over to be provided with a big story by politicians, which is allowing them write our news. This is the news, the commission did a terrible job and commissions are only handling bodies. It deprives significantly their compensation to victims and in that it is probably an offence, causing a loss to one and a gain to another.
Gov should go on this regardless of who will replace, not a good time, its horrendous act of vandalism to the victims truth.
have your say