Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman has responded to complaints about plans to seal the archive of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission (MBHC) for 30 years.
The Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters) Records Bill 2020 is set to be discussed in the Seanad this week with the MBHC due to publish the findings of its five-year investigation on 30 October.
The Justice for Magdalenes group and the Adoption Rights Alliance said in a statement the sealing of the archive "means no-one will be able to access their personal records [or information] about their disappeared relatives or babies who are buried in unmarked graves".
The statement continued: "All of the administrative files, which show how the abusive system of forced family separation was run, will also be withheld.
"It will not be possible to question the conclusions of the Commission of Investigation, to do further research, or to hold wrongdoers to account."
Minister O'Gorman said the bill being brought forward is "needed to preserve access to invaluable information now and into the future, and not to put it beyond reach as has been reported".
In a statement, he said the MBHC was set up under the 2004 Commissions of Investigation Act.
Minister O'Gorman said: "The entire premise of the 2004 Act, which we are bound to follow, is that investigations are held in private.
"That confidentiality applies to the evidence and records gathered by the inquiry. It is central to allow testimony be given freely.
"Earlier this year, the MBHC informed us that it had created a database tracking who was in the main mother-and-baby homes, but did not feel it had a legal basis to transfer that database and would be compelled by law to redact the valuable information we are trying to now preserve.
"This bill provides for this, and allows the database to be transferred to Tusla (with whom most of the original records are already held). It prevents the information from effectively being destroyed, and will allow access to that info under existing laws."
Minister O'Gorman continued: "The 2004 Act also requires that such records are sealed for a period of 30 years pending their transfer to the National Archives.
"This provision was already in place ahead of the establishment of the Commission.
"The Commission is due to submit its final report and stand dissolved in law on 30 October. This Bill needs to be passed and signed into law prior to its dissolution.
"Failure to act will result in an incomplete archive transferring and in the database being effectively destroyed and unavailable for information and tracing."
Mr O'Gorman said he remained "absolutely committed to addressing the wider matter of providing a new architecture surrounding access to birth information and tracing; this will be advanced soon".
Human rights lecturer Dr Maeve O'Rourke, who campaigns on behalf of unmarried mothers and their children to help find out the truth about what happened to them, said the minister "must inform the public of what kinds of records" he intends to seal for 30 years.
She said: "They are likely to include innumerable State and institutional administrative records, which are crucial to piecing together how the system of forced family separation operated."
She said the time has come for a "holistic, mature response to our history - one that becomes us as the nation we want to and really could be".
