Submission to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills on the provisions of the Retention of Records Bill 2019

Abstract

Summary of Submission: List of Findings and Recommendations We welcome this consultation on the Retention of Records Bill 2019.1 We are grateful for the opportunity to make a submission to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills and we hope that this consultation will lead to a larger effort to engage with survivors of residential schools and other institutional and gender-based abuses in order to ascertain their views on the Bill. We cannot overstate the potential impact of this Bill's contents on our country’s historical record, on survivors' and their families' personal lives, and on our State's ability to prevent abuse in the future. The Bill deserves the most careful and survivor-focused scrutiny possible. The ‘Report on a Scoping Study on a consultation process with survivors of institutional abuse’ commissioned by the Department of Education earlier this year stated that numerous survivors were worried about the Bill's effects on them.2