This morning.
Usher’s Quay, Dublin 8.
New petrol prices after The Minister for Finance announced carbon tax will be increased by €7.50 per tonne of carbon dioxide in Budget 2021. Paschal Donohoe said that the charge rise at Midnight from €26 to €33.50 will be applied to auto fuels and all other fuels from May 1, 2021.
This morning.
The Seanad.
Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration Roderic O’Gorman is speaking on his bill that will allow the Mother and Baby Homes Commission’s archive to be sealed for 30 years (except for a database on mothers and children detained in 11 institutions which it wants to give to TUSLA).
Minister O’Gorman said:
“As colleagues will know, access to information is a recurring and priority concern for those directly involved in the Mother and Baby Home institutions
“This legislation…urgent measure in terms of preserving valuable databases and records…speak to that very concern.
“I understand that there are genuine expectations that this database should enable additional information available to residents.
“In that regard it is essential to understand that Tusla is still bound by the continuing significant constitutional constraints in terms of access to information.
“This can only be addressed by future legislation which is something to which I am absolutely committed.
“I appreciate that some stakeholders have argued that the database and related records should be transferred to a body other than Tusla.
“The rationale for specifying Tusla as the recipient of the database is that it already has statutory responsibility for adoption tracing services under the Adoption Act of 2010 and already dedicates substantial resources and expertise to carrying out tracing functions.
“Crucially it currently holds the originals of many of the institutional records. Legally this enables the maximum value to be obtained from the database in the immediate term while comprehensive information and tracing legislation is being put in place.”
“A transfer to any statutory body, other than Tusla, such as the Adoption Authority of Ireland, would mean that two different statutory bodies withholds the same records with Tusla holding the originals and the AAI holding the database and associated copies. Such a duplication would inefficient and would lead to confusion.”
“Tusla will be fulfilling an important…safeguarding this database in the immediate term. The appropriate body to retain such records in the long term will be subject of further consultation and consideration in the course of bringing forward new legislative proposals for enhancing information and tracing services. I will of course seek further engagement with stakeholders as I advance these deliberations.
“Due to the urgent need to pass this legislation before the commission is dissolved, I appreciate there has been limited time to review the proposals.
“The requirement for pre-legislative scrutiny was waived by the House Business Committee at my request. However, I hope with the recent briefings I provided, as well as the information outlined today, I hope these have been helpful to you all.”
Watch here
More as we get it.
Last night: Sealing Their Fate
Chief Justice Frank Clarke has criticised Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe for his third postponement of a meeting about his role in Golfgate
This morning.
Further to yesterday’s postponement….
Via Irish Independent.
The Chief Justice and fellow Supreme Court judge Donal O’Donnell had been due to attend the meeting about Golfgate with Mr Justice Woulfe…Mr Justice Woulfe was to have been accompanied by “a judicial colleague of his choice”.
Instead this judge, who was not identified in the statement, met Mr Justice Clarke and Mr Justice O’Donnell and requested a further postponement on Mr Justice Woulfe’s behalf.
A statement from the Chief Justice’s office:
“As a result of what was said at that meeting, the Chief Justice has indicated that, very reluctantly, he is prepared to make one final postponement of the proposed meeting until Thursday,”
“The Chief Justice has indicated his very serious concern as to the damage which the continuation of this process is causing.
“The Chief Justice has made it clear that, should the meeting not go ahead as scheduled on Thursday, he will make alternative arrangements to convey his final views on the process to Mr Justice Woulfe.”
Seamus Woulfe given ultimatum after postponing ‘Golfgate’ meeting for a third time (Independent.ie)
Dr Vincent Carroll, GP, joins the growing list of medical professionals questioning NPHET’s advice and guidance. pic.twitter.com/ppsrRDgMTB
— HealthFreedomIreland (@HealthFreedomIE) October 13, 2020
Dr Vincent Carroll joins a small but growing group of Irish medical dissenters.
He must be destroyed.
Previously: It’s a Small Club
Meanwhile…
This guy is criminal – direct lying, straight to camera – criminal.
Our governments across the world are being led by criminals. https://t.co/B2AmfmL3th
— Ivor Cummins (@FatEmperor) October 13, 2020
Meanwhile…
"As a medic, my verdict is clear: mandatory government lockdowns amount to a medical recommendation of no proven benefit, of extraordinary potential harm, that do not take personal values and individual consent into account."https://t.co/yca7rk9Guv
— Matt Ridley (@mattwridley) October 14, 2020
whenever I see anything about dominic west and his wife catherine, I think of this quote, the most trinity college thing of all time pic.twitter.com/zu5JdUjwtK
— laura-blaise mcghoul 🧟♀️ (@BlaisinSquad) October 13, 2020
Good times.
Yesterday: Submissive Dom
Yesterday.
Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2.
Harry Warren writes:
‘Dublin can be heaven with coffee at eleven and a stroll in Stephen’s Green…’
In fairness.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly
1) Genuinely gutted
Not only has Minister @DonnellyStephen failed to implement medical card reform for the terminally ill as promised, he has also REMOVED all reference to it in #Budget2021 Expenditure Report.#medicalcardscandal #Budget2020 #budget
From last year’s report pic.twitter.com/MEoVNwYrAx— (@walls2) October 13, 2020
Last night.
Patient advocate and father-of- three John Wall, aged 49, from Quin, Co Clare, who, following a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer, had his Emergency Medical Card abruptly revoked and then restored last year by then Minister for Health Simon Harris.
John had got assurances that a commitment to review the Terminal Illness Card with specific reference to the current necessity to be have a prognosis of 12 months or less left to live, would be addressed.
However, all reference to the card was omitted from Budget 2021 material supplied yesterday.
Anyone?
Previously: John Wall on Broadsheet
Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration Roderic O’Gorman
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.
— Roderic O’Gorman TD (@rodericogorman) October 13, 2020
This afternoon.
Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration Roderic O’Gorman responds (above) to criticism of the Government’s bill to allow the Mother and Baby Homes Commission’s archive to be sealed for 30 years (except for a database on mothers and children detained in 11 institutions which it wants to give to TUSLA).
Dr Maeve O’Rourke, a barrister, lecturer and Director of the Human Rights Law Clinic, writes:
‘The Bill shows the Oireachtas is not bound by the provisions of the 2004 Commissions of Investigation Act. It can legislate – as it is intending to do regarding the database & records it wants to send to TUSLA – to ‘un-seal’ material gathered or created by the Commission.
The Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 was never the appropriate legislation on which to base an inquiry into grave and systematic human rights abuse, including enforce disappearance, because of its provisions around confidentiality. I and many others argued this in 2015.
The 2004 Act did not absolutely require the Commission to proceed in private. The Commission had discretion under the 2004 Act to conduct some of its inquiry in public. It chose not to do so. As we and global law firm Hogans Lovells recorded in the @clann_project report, the Commission refused requests for public hearings without giving specific reasons.
Since 2018, the GDPR & Data Protection Act 2018 has applied to records gathered by Commissions of Investigation, with the proviso that personal data can only be withheld (see s198 of 2018 Act):
‘To safeguard the effective operation of commissions and the future cooperation of witnesses.’
How could allowing survivors of forced family separation and relatives of disappeared and deceased infants to access personal data hamper the Commission’s effective operation?
More to the point, once the Commission is finished and the archive held by the Minister, how could the exceptions to the right of personal data access set out in s198 of the 2018 Act apply?
So, even under current legislation, it seems the archive should not be fully ‘sealed’.
The Minister seems to argue that the ‘sealing’ of the entire archive in his office for 30 years (save for what goes to TUSLA) is in the interests of those who suffered abuse.
The Government argued the same in support of the Retention of Records Bill 2019 – seeking to seal for 75 yrs every single document in the archives of the Ryan Commission and the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
Several points need to be understood here:
1. Nobody is requesting that the public have access to the personal data of those affected.
2. The Commission of Investigation gave people no choice: it held no public hearings and it refused to allow anyone have a transcript of the evidence they gave to the Commission. (Nor did it allow access to any personal data or information about deceased relatives that it held.)
3. Those affected by the abuse under investigation should, under European human rights law, have been enabled to participate properly in the inquiry and to see the evidence coming in from the State and other institutions responsible for the family separation system.
4. They should now have the option of receiving a copy of all of their personal data and information about disappeared family members that the Commission gathered, and they should be entitled to their own transcript of evidence.
5. Crucially, the Minister must inform the public of what kinds of records he intends to seal for 30 years. They likely include innumerable state and institutional administrative records, which are crucial to piecing together how the system of forced family separation operated.
6. Those who suffered grave and systematic human rights abuses have the right, not only to know what happened to them or their relative, but ALSO to have the truth of the system told publicly -in the sense of releasing administrative records, which can be anonymised as necessary.
There has been little to no legal accountability for so-called ‘historical’ institutional, adoption and gender-based abuse in Ireland – no systematic measures to allow access to court or to ensure prosecutions. Barriers are everywhere.
The least we can do is tell the whole truth.
Both the Minister and the Oireachtas have full power to give access to the archive for those personally affected – now.
After that, the question of national education needs to be addressed. A dedicated archive and museum could be an alternative response, not only to the issue of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission archive, but also to the current secrecy of the McAleese archive which contains all state records on the Magdalene Laundries – and the archives of the Ryan Commission and RIRB which are currently in limbo.
In January 2020, the Information Commissioner found (in the case of Mrs P) that the Department of the Taoiseach cannot continue to claim that it is holding the McAleese archive ‘for safe keeping’ and not for the purposes of Freedom of Information.
Last November the Oireachtas Education and Skills Committee rightly decided that the Retention of Records Bill 2019 would cause further abuse.
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.’
Last Friday: Access Denied
Meanwhile…
Justice For Magdalenes Research write:
The Government is progressing this Bill at lightning speed. Yet the relatives of disappeared women and children throughout the country, and living survivors and adopted people, have been denied any access to the Commission of Investigation’s archive.
Witnesses have even been denied a transcript of the evidence that they gave to the Commission of Investigation.
The ‘sealing’ of abuse records has to end.
How you can help?
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Urgent: Mother and Baby Home Commission (Justice For Magdalene Research)
Rob writes:
I thought you might be interested in the patriotic soup I’m making for lunch. Next week I need to figure out a starry plough recipe.
But fascist soup or Pantifa soup?
We may never know.
The Space Between Lace exhibition
St. Fursa’s Hall, Headford, Co. Galway
An international exhibition of lace, comprising artwork selected from 34 artists, from 11 countries across 4 different continents, including Ger Hasset, whose A Black Mark (above) commemorates the 796 children who died at Tuam Mother and baby Home.
Ger writes:
‘796 black marks in a watery grave. A strip of white bobbin lace commemorates mothers, all interconnected by their experience of the home. Marked for life as ‘fallen women’ yet where are the fallen men?
A strip of pink/blue bobbin lace remembers the babies denied their true identities robbed of their childhoods and their mother’s love. The white lace envelopes them now as they never knew a mother’s embrace. The pink lace represents turmoil.
The crossing and twisting of threads illustrates the controlling conditions under which the mothers were detained and restrained. The purple vein signifies the authority of the Church.
Did they ever recover a thread of self? All are united on this canvas.’
Headford Lace
Thanks Breeda
