Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): In the room, we have Dr Mark Farrell, who is the expert member for archiving; Professor Sean O'Connell, co-chair of the truth recovery independent panel (TRIP) and social and oral historian; and Roisin McGlone, victim/survivor representative. Online, we have Professor Leanne McCormick, co-chair of the panel and social and oral historian.

The invitation requested that the panel provide an update on the conclusions of its final report, but that is not possible at this stage. The panel is committed to ensuring that victims and survivors are the first to receive that information, so the witnesses will provide an overview of the report's content and an outline of its recommendations, including those for the inquiry and for a permanent archive. I wanted to read that into the record.

Sean, will you or Leanne lead on the information that you can update us on at this point?

Professor Sean O'Connell (Truth Recovery Independent Panel): Leanne will start.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Go ahead, please, Leanne. Thank you.

Professor Leanne McCormick (Truth Recovery Independent Panel): Thanks very much, Chair, for the invitation to attend Committee. I had intended to be there in person, but I appreciate the option to attend online.

As the Chair said, I am Leanne McCormick. Sean O'Connell and I chair the truth recovery independent panel. We are joined today by Roisin McGlone, who is one of the victim/survivor representatives on the panel, and Mark Farrell, who has led on archives and records. You will, of course, have received our written briefing, but, today, in these introductory remarks, we will give you a brief overview, initially, of where we are with the panel report. Sean will then give an overview of some of the report's findings. Roisin will speak to some of the recommendations that we have made in the report, and Mark will speak on the recommendations for an independent, permanent archive.

The report is complete. It is being printed, and we have a confirmed launch date of 7 July. It is a substantial report of about half a million words and about 1,500 pages. It will be published in four volumes along with a stand-alone executive summary that provides an overview of the report. We engaged extensively with victims and survivors through the Executive Office-established consultative forum and through panel engagement sessions around the launch of the report. On the back of our engagement, we have decided to make the report available, on a request basis, for victims and survivors a week in advance of the launch. We are aware that it is a substantial report that will take time for people to digest. We wanted to ensure that victims and survivors had some time to do that prior to the launch. The panel will meet victims and survivors during that week before the launch to answer questions or address any concerns. The launch will really be for victims and survivors as well. We wanted to ensure that support would be available from the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS), and we have Adopt NI available across the period. It is important to us that we have adopted a trauma-informed approach and that victims and survivors are at the centre of our plans, particularly for the publication of the report.

As mentioned, the report is in four volumes. The first one covers the work of the report, the working groups, our methodologies — essentially, what we did, why we did it and how we did it — and, importantly, our recommendations. Volumes 2 and 3 look at the institutions and their pathways and practices, using a combination of the archival records and testimony. Volume 4 includes two large chapters on serious human rights issues and on harms and impacts. The harms and impacts chapter in particular draws extensively on the 284 testimonies that were available to the panel. In addition, thousands of relevant archival records were analysed. Over 5,500 records have been digitised by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) as well, which ensures their survival and preservation.

I will now hand over to Sean to talk a bit about the content of the report.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you, Leanne. Go ahead, please, Sean.

Professor O'Connell: I will identify some of the ways in which the panel's report has advanced our understandings from where they were in 2021 when the joint research report by Queen's and Ulster University and the truth recovery design panel's report were published. Obviously, the panel has produced a report of much greater depth and with more coverage of the existing questions. We have also developed several new areas of investigation that will feed on to the public inquiry that comes next.

One headline issue is that the numbers admitted to the institutions have been revised upwards. In 2021, admissions to mother-and-baby institutions were estimated to be 10,500. We now put that number at 12,062. In 2021, admissions to what were known as the "Magdalene laundries" and the Salvation Army's Thorndale Industrial Home were estimated to be 3,455. Now, we put that number at 3,753.

The panel's report draws on much more significant amounts of testimony than was the case in those previous reports. That included testimony from people who brought with them paperwork that they had collected in their search for personal information, and that has greatly assisted our understanding of the institutions and the pathways and practices associated with them. It has enriched our knowledge of the institutions, and, at the centre of each chapter, there are testimonies that the panel has written about those institutions. Moreover, testimony has enhanced our understanding of the pathways and practices related to those institutions. Examples include our understanding of the cross-border movement of children between the Republic and Northern Ireland and the role of some private nursing homes in family separation. In fact, the testimony on private nursing homes that we heard included some of the most difficult that the panel listened to. The archival evidence around one private nursing home also revealed the hidden history of something that was known in the early 20th century as "baby farming". Testimony also revealed the role of some private family homes in facilitating the concealment of pregnancy, which was then followed by adoption.

Testimony from a woman born in 1924 explained how her pregnant mother was forced into her local workhouse, and they both spent 15 years there. That was one of the most remarkable testimonies that we recorded. That brave woman died not long after we recorded her testimony, and I would like the Committee to note that the decision to exclude workhouses from redress excludes her traumatic experience, which was caused by the state, society and religious attitudes at that time. It also technically excludes her from the acknowledgement offered by the redress scheme.

The panel has repeatedly made clear its opposition to the creation of a hierarchy of victims, and we argue that any redress scheme that has that result is flawed and not trauma-informed. The current exclusion of workhouses from the scheme is one example of that. A second example is the proposal to impose a qualification date on posthumous claims. The panel sees no ethical or moral rationale for that decision and has consistently argued against it. The truth recovery process is designed around a trauma-informed approach, but, in our view, the policy on posthumous claims rides a horse and carriage through that.

I have one final point on redress. In its interim report in 2024, the panel recommended that Deanery Flats be removed from the redress list and that Clogrennan was an institution that needed to be added to the list. We are aware that Deanery Flats has been removed but that Clogrennan is still to be added, which is causing distress to those affected by that institution. We trust that that is an administrative delay rather than anything else, and we bring that to the Committee's attention. Thorndale Industrial Home, which has also been left off the current list, should be included. It was the Protestant equivalent of the laundries that were operated by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

The panel's report breaks new ground in discussing the serious human rights issues and the harms and impacts associated with the institutions and their related pathways and practices. There, too, testimony shared with the panel is at the centre of the two chapters that we have written on those issues.

The analysis in each chapter feeds into the final example of how the report differs from what has gone before, which is in the recommendations that the panel has made to various bodies, and I will now hand over to Rosin to speak about that.

Ms Roisin McGlone (Truth Recovery Independent Panel): Good afternoon, everyone. I am very pleased to be here, even in light of your earlier discussion and what is happening outside of here.

I want to talk about two things regarding the recommendations in the report. The first is the recommendations themselves. My colleague Maria and I were responsible for collating the recommendations. It was critical to us and the other panel members that the voice of victims be heard in the recommendations.

I will give you the statistics, although I know that you have them in your information packs. The final report has 68 recommendations: 28 to the forthcoming public inquiry; 39 to the Northern Ireland Executive; and one to the PSNI. I will not use this time to go into specific recommendations. Rather, I want to talk a bit about the process of how we collated the recommendations and put them forward.

As Leanne said, the report has four volumes, almost 1,600 pages and half a million words. The figures get confusing at times. The important thing that runs through the whole report is the voice of victims. We spoke about the 238 new victims, the 284 testimonies that we took and the 5,500 pieces of archival records. Those testimonies and that evidence are weaved through all 29 chapters across the four volumes.

Victims' voices are heard throughout.

When Maria and I came to look at the recommendations, we trawled through everything. We had an input to all chapters, and, just for your interest, I will say that we used a democratised, robust process for writing the chapters. I will give you a small example: a primary author wrote a chapter, which was then loaded on to a robust and confidential information management system, and it then went through a series of panel members. First of all, it went to the victims and survivors, and we input everything that was, we thought, relevant: everything from spelling mistakes, which were totally unimportant, to our opinion on tone, our opinion on what had and had not been included and our opinion on what should be included or, given that evidence had been taken from different places, added. That then went back to the original authors, and they incorporated our comments and recommendations, because we were listening to victims and survivors and feeding that through. They then revised their chapter on that basis. That chapter then went to our colleague Beverley, who is a trauma-informed expert, and went through the same process again. It then went to our legal expert, Colin, and went through the same process again. The chapters went back and forth, which is why the extension was necessary. You can imagine the dynamic involved in 29 chapters.

As the chapters were being written and refined and the information updated, the victims' voices were strong and the testimony was woven through all of those chapters, so Maria and I started to look at what victims wanted us to recommend. If it was about, for example, specific homes — people had told us various things — we looked at those.

Then there were the harms and impacts. What would people want us to do about those? We collated all the recommendations, had a brainstorming session on those and came up with dozens and dozens. We then went through a process of looking at any duplication in recommendations or where we could amalgamate them. The next stage was our asking, "Who are were making this recommendation to?". I could talk forever on that. I could also talk about access to records. It was quite a robust process. It was also, because it was very dynamic and involved a lot of opinions and people, quite a fractured one.

I will end the introduction session with my concern. The work has been done, and we have spent three years taking on board the voices of the victims, who have been put through the mill in the recent considerations in the Chamber. It has been a tough old road, and I commend the victims and survivors and support groups who have got us to this point. We are very far into the process, and very robust recommendations have been made as a result of that very protracted process, so my question to you is this: what will happen to them now? What mechanisms will be in place to make sure that they are introduced, not only the recommendations for the public inquiry but those that we make to the Executive? I will end with that challenge to you. Victims and survivors have brought the process to this point. We are handing over the work that we did with their help. We could not have done it without all those wonderful people who came and gave their testimonies, as well as the archival footage, some of which was condemnatory in itself. I put that challenge to you.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you.

Mark, do you want to contribute at this point?

Dr Mark Farrell (Truth Recovery Independent Panel): Yes. Thank you. I am happy to be here. I will talk about the recommendations that relate to the permanent archive. The Committee will be aware of the central importance of records and archives in the whole truth recovery process. The panel's terms of reference include a requirement to contribute to the drafting of legislation to establish a permanent, independent archive of historical institutional and adoption records and other records relating to children in state care.

In the spring of 2025, we undertook a consultation process seeking the views of victims and survivors on the proposals for such an archive. As part of the process, we hosted two consultation events. The responses that we received from victims and survivors have informed our recommendations in that regard.

The recommendations appear in full in our final report. I will summarise them briefly. The permanent archive should hold all records relating to the historical institutions and the people who spent time in them. It should also include adoption, fostering and boarding-out records, along with social care records and certain medical records. It should also be able to gather relevant records, including further testimonies from affected persons who wish to come forward in the future, on an ongoing basis. Importantly, relevant records that are currently owned and controlled by private agencies and institutions should be taken into public ownership and form part of the permanent archive. That has been a core concern for victims and survivors. However, it is important to note that public ownership does not mean public access. It means that the records will be kept safe and secure and managed to recognised archival standards. It also means that there will be transparent and consistent rules and procedures in place regarding access. An individual's consent must be the priority when deciding who can access records.

I move now to the establishment and governance. The permanent archive should operate under the auspices of PRONI but be managed by a decision-making body that gives an ongoing role to victim/survivor representatives in the management of the archive. A trauma-informed approach should shape and guide all decisions made about the permanent archive, including which records are collected and managed into the future and who can access them and in what circumstances. A trauma-informed approach should also influence decisions on practical matters such as the location and layout of the public areas of the archive. Those areas should include suitable meeting spaces, quiet areas and other facilities that allow people to access their records and use the archive in a safe environment with suitable supports and assistance.

That is a brief overview of the recommendations for a permanent archive. That fits into the wider set of recommendations that Roisin outlined.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody, for your written submission, which Leanne mentioned, and your oral contributions.

Sean, I very much take your point about some of the issues with the legislation. I think that we could all agree that, had we had this report earlier — you were commissioned for a two-year period that ended before we started our scrutiny — we would be in a stronger position on some of the issues that you raised, not least the likes of Thorndale House. I had said in closed session that some institutions were not on the list. When we brought in the departmental officials and asked, "Should we be adding them?", they said that there was not enough information in the 2021 report. Obviously, since that report, you have heard many more oral testimonies and taken a lot more evidence. Given that there was not enough information in front of us on some of the institutions whose inclusion people were lobbying for, we agreed that we would recommend that the inquiry be in modular form and that, should evidence be presented, the chairman of the inquiry panel would have the ability to add to the list of relevant institutions. If all of that is in your report, that can happen very quickly, once the inquiry comes. We can raise that with the departmental officials when we get the report from you.

We have not yet finished the Bill's process. We have completed Consideration Stage, and Further Consideration Stage will be on 22 June. The Committee will discuss the potential of proposing an amendment to include "23 April 1953". Obviously, we tried removing the date altogether. I strongly agree with the sentiments that some of you have conveyed in that regard. We have not given up on that yet. We got legal advice, and that amendment is probably the best place that we can land, if at all.

I have a couple of questions. We had a really insightful visit to PRONI.— the guys there know their stuff — and a couple of things jumped out. Some institutions were prepared to lend or give access to records but then took them back. The Committee also found out from the Department of Health that there is a difficulty with centralised archiving, which is that some of the medical records relate to people who are still alive. In your recommendations, how do you square some of those systemic barriers or procedural issues?

Dr Farrell: The panel does not have powers of compulsion, so we relied very much on the goodwill and cooperation of the private institutions. In the data-sharing agreements that we signed with them, they attached conditions to the records. Some institutions have, as you put it, taken them back. We had access to them purely for the purposes of the panel's research. That is an issue. One of our recommendations for the longer term is that relevant records should be declared to be, in effect, public records. It is a big issue for victims and survivors that the institutions that caused harm in the past continue to control the records and access to them.

What was your second query?

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): It was about what the Department of Health said about a centralised archive for social care records and medical records.

Dr Farrell: The Department of Health has policies on the retention of medical records. It is a major issue for adopted people when it comes to their knowledge of their medical histories and the difficulties that that places them in, particularly when they have children of their own and have no knowledge of inherited conditions and so on. There will have to be a reassessment. It came up time and time again in our dealings with victims and survivors, and it comes up in the testimonies a lot with regard to access to family medical history. Our recommendations will touch on what the Department of Health should do in future with its retention policy on medical records. It is one of the things that we address.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Sean, you raised another point that we grappled with as a Committee, which is the issue of workhouses. We recognise the awful situation that the mother and child whom you described were in. We raised the issue with departmental officials. The redress scheme will be admissions-based and focused on misogyny and the mistreatment of unmarried, pregnant women in those days, but workhouses were for people from a range of backgrounds. In your research, is there any way in which you can identify how that stream could be included in the redress scheme now or by sliding them across as the inquiry starts?

Professor O'Connell: The answer is yes, but Leanne is probably the best person to answer that.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Sorry, Leanne. Do you want to answer that?

Professor McCormick: Yes. That is an issue. We raised it in our response on redress and in discussions with TEO officials. It is possible to identify women who were admitted to workhouses, particularly unmarried women who then gave birth. In some of the research that we have done, we can see a difference in the length of time that unmarried women in particular remained in the workhouses. There is a way to do that, but it is not necessarily straightforward. The records of workhouses are complex, and, as you say, they admitted people for a range of issues. They were the main institutions that, philanthropically, looked after people in distress. People who needed any kind of care ended up there. There is a way to do it, however. It is not straightforward, but we have suggested all along that it could be done.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Thank you.

Roisin, what are your reflections on the process? Have victims and survivors been empowered, and will that set them up for the inquiry? Do people feel that they have given their testimony and had their voice heard, or do they feel emboldened now and want to engage heavily with the inquiry when it happens?

Ms McGlone: Feelings are mixed, to be honest with you. For some people, a team of horses would not take them to the inquiry. It just would not happen. We had a non-adversarial process, where people were coming in and the approach was trauma-informed, and we got very good responses. Word got around and people came. As you know, there were issues about getting the budget and getting the information out to let people know that we were taking testimony.

I have real concerns. I am not saying that lessons from previous inquiries have not been learnt, but, given the stuff that Patricia Lundy did on the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry and its retraumatising impact on people, I am a bit concerned that we are, in a sense, putting lambs to the slaughter. Core participant status is very important. I honestly cannot answer your question. I think that it will be a mixture. I do not think that we will be inundated with hundreds of people coming forward, because, remember, the shame and the stigma are still there to this day. You talked about violence against young women. This is very much connected to that. Historically, that is how women and girls were treated. It was sanctioned by the state, the Churches, the families — everybody. That was just the reality. It is as clear as ever to me that it is linked to how women and girls are treated in our society today. The shame and the stigma are still there.

There is a lot of uncertainty, because we do not have a chair for the inquiry yet. There is a lot of uncertainty about what the inquiry will look like and where it will be held. Look at truth recovery across the world. You talked about rural communities. Women do not want to come to a glass-fronted place in Belfast, with a team of lawyers or whatever, not knowing what they will face. People need some certainty. You did a great job with the consultation. I attended those events. You should maybe think about doing something similar for the inquiry in order to get information out to people. I know that you all have your constituents. When there is more certainty, it would be helpful if you could get information out to people on what the inquiry will look and feel like and what people will have to go through, because, from word of mouth about the HIA inquiry and the re-traumatisation there, I think that there is a lot of fear. That is a long answer to a short question.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): No, no. I appreciate that. I have another question for Sean, but I will wait and see whether anyone else brings it up first.

Mr Dickson: I appreciate what you are telling us today, but some alarm bells are ringing. By 7 July, the legislation will have passed through the House. Some of the things that you have talked about today are things that we should have perhaps given more emphasis than we did, in particular, as the Chair said, the institutions that are listed. I am not sure that we had previously received the veracity on that that we have got today. We were saying it, and departmental officials were pushing back on it, but nobody else was coming forward and saying, "You're not listening to this bit" or "We have this evidence". Your evidence will come in a report on 7 July: that is too late.

Professor O'Connell: In fairness, we made these points in our response on the draft legislation. We also made these points to you in our previous submissions; certainly, in our written submissions. We set out our position on the posthumous date, if you want to use that as an example. I think that we have done that. Our not publishing until 7 July is very unfortunate, but it was very unfortunate that we were not given a budget for our outreach programme for six months. We sat waiting for six months for sign-off on that budget. That delayed us for six months.

Mr Dickson: That rings alarm bells as well, because you have to ask why that was the case. You are going to produce an authoritative report on 7 July. Until then, it is, "You said"; "We said"; "They said". On 7 July, we will have, in print, an authoritative report, and the legislation will have been passed. I appreciate that some of your report will be able to shape the public inquiry, but, if there are elements of it that should have been must-dos in the legislation, and we were not able to persuade the Department or were not persuaded ourselves to make the appropriate amendments, I find that very concerning. I am sorry, but I do.

Another issue that comes to mind is the archive. I think that the archive will be a very powerful space for people to go into, and all your comments about how it needs to be controlled, and about how appropriate that environment must be, are absolutely right. I wholly accept the points that are being made about that and the detail of how it will look. However, you made a very important comment when you said that there should be a declaration of public records. I agree with you that there should be a declaration of public records, yet we have come up against a brick wall in our discussions with PRONI because at least one Church-based organisation is refusing — well, not refusing, but saying that the records are only on loan. That organisation is saying that, arguably, it is better placed to look after the records than PRONI is. It is too late to enquire into that now, but it seems as though we should have had a clause in the Bill that says that all the records that are garnered should be in the public domain. It does not seem that it would have been beyond the bounds of legislative competence to have put that into the Bill. Somebody could have come back and said, "Well, actually, you can't do that", but we should, at least, have explored that area in the Committee. The records are vital. You made the very important statement that they should be declared public records, but they are not. It is appalling that we have missed the opportunity to put that declaration into the Bill.

Professor O'Connell: It would have been helpful to have had our legal expert, Colin Smith, on the witness panel today, but, unfortunately, he is not here. I think that his argument would probably be that it is a complicated Bill, and that that would be a second complicated Bill that you were trying to funnel into what is already complicated legislation. It is certainly in our recommendations. We provide an example in our recommendation of what the Bill might look like. There is the Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Act 2021, which is quite similar. That is in our recommendations. Maybe you could wait until you read the report and make a judgement then — I do not know.

Mr Dickson: Yes. That is the position that we are now in, but it might have been very useful to have explored that while the draft legislation was at its earlier developmental stages.

One of the areas that we have grappled with and, in my view, not reached a satisfactory conclusion on is the restitution to be paid by institutions. What engagement have you had on that topic? Is there anything more that you can bring to that aspect?

Professor O'Connell: We have not engaged with the institutions about redress partly because redress is not strictly in our terms of reference. Our engagement with the institutions has been about access to records and, in some cases, access to individuals who worked in the institutions in order to try to get testimony from those individuals. That is the level of our relationship with the institutions. It has been about records or testimony, not about what their position might be on contribution to redress.

Mr Dickson: Thank you.

Mrs Erskine: Thank you for your information and for coming to the Committee. Following on from the Deputy Chair's point, obviously we have not got the report and we do not know exactly what the recommendations will say, so some of this is quite difficult. Data and access to people's records is a fundamental issue. I wonder whether some of your recommendations relate to secondary legislation in this area. That would be a wee bit of a concern for me, considering the time that it takes for legislation to be created and passed, and also given the discussions that the Committee has had, particularly on the likes of access to health records. We are talking about people who are already deceased, and that is a major barrier when it comes to the records. Can you speak to your recommendations on access to records, particularly if it means that secondary legislation would be needed?

Dr Farrell: The outcome of the consultation process that, as I mentioned, took place in the spring of last year is available on our website. On foot of that, we have made detailed recommendations to TEO. TEO already has those recommendations. As I said at the outset, in my presentation, access to records and consent around access to records are crucial. The issue of access to the records of deceased persons has come up time and time again with family members who are trying to establish their personal histories, their family histories and so on. Our detailed recommendations, which TEO already has and which will be reproduced in full in our report, go into detail about the kind of access that would be appropriate for family members, how that access should be managed and in what circumstances access can be given. That is all there in detail. The victims and survivors will hear about that from us first, and it will be widely available after that. We have addressed exactly those kinds of issues in detail in our itemised recommendations on access to records.

Mrs Erskine: OK.

Ms McGlone: Deborah, we also did a detailed survey of victims and survivors to allow them to talk about their experience, to which we had an excellent response. It is not just about medical records; it is about records of care and what happened to children who are now adults and to their birth mothers. That was a sobering consultation. We have published that: it is on our website, and there are recommendations in it about access to records. I understand that you are talking about legislation. If you remember, legislation was passed on the preservation of records. That legislation is already there and can, as I understand it, be added to.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): We are frustrated that it has not been added to.

Ms McGlone: Yes. We drew conclusions about how people should be treated. That was done last year, and the results are on our website. It was harrowing to listen to some of the experiences that people have had when trying to access their records.

It might give some reassurance to the Committee if I run briefly through the headline recommendations. I will not go into detail here. We have made 28 recommendations to the public inquiry, which relate to the operation of the inquiry and what it might wish to examine. They are things such as those that we have mentioned: serious human rights issues in the oversight of institutions; the right to equality and non-discrimination, because it happened to women; the right to life; prohibition of inhumane and degrading treatment; prohibition of forced labour; the right to liberty; the right to respect for family life; and the right to respect for private life.

There are 39 recommendations to the Executive, which again relate to the public inquiry and what we said earlier about what it will look like and how it will run. The recommendations include the inclusion of institutions and relevant persons, which Sean mentioned; civil registrations; the registration of all burials; redress and reparations; access to records; record-keeping; and national archives. Then we have made a recommendation to the PSNI. That just gives you a feel of the recommendations and should reassure you, Stewart, that, although Sean gave some examples that would affect the Bill, most of the recommendations are for after the public inquiry starts. It is about issues that we identified that the legislation would never have covered, such as registration of deaths. That is just to reassure you that the recommendations are for the future.

Dr Farrell: Procedures, guidelines and policies are already in place for access to records. The difficulties that people have are with the inconsistent application and contradictory implementation of those procedures, guidelines and policies, depending on which health and social care trust or private institution they go to. Sometimes there is contradictory information even within institutions, depending on who one deals with. The advantage of having a centralised archive is not just the physical storage of the records but the consistent and supported access to records so that people can be sure of where they stand with regard to their records and do not get contradictory information every time, with bits of information received today and different bits of information received next week. Policy and regulation is one thing, but their implementation and the manner of that implementation are equally important.

Mrs Erskine: OK. There is a balance to be struck between a person's right to receive details about themselves and their right to privacy. How do you find the sweet spot, so to speak, in controlling that? That is a massive issue.

Dr Farrell: I made the point earlier that individual consent is crucial in respect of access to the records of people who are still living; it must be in their control. It is important that everybody understands that, when we talk about public ownership of records, we are not talking about access to records beyond access for the individual concerned. There is a question about the records of deceased people, as you mentioned, and that is where we have to balance those interests. I may come forward with a legitimate interest in accessing the records of another person, but it is up to the operational policies of the archive — currently the healthcare trust or the Department — to balance the interests. Again, in taking those issues into account, the existence of consistent guidelines, and their consistent implementation, is key.

Mrs Erskine: Support for people in that situation is paramount. A person may have an expectation that they will receive details but, actually, not receive them. That is also important in the balancing act.

Dr Farrell: Exactly. In cases where a person does not receive all the information that they want to receive, it must be fully explained why that is the case. Some of the terminology used in the records can be confusing and upsetting, so support is needed in that regard as well. As regards the permanent archive, there will be a requirement for not just physical storage, retention and access policies but support, help and consistency for people.

Mrs Erskine: Has there been engagement with PRONI and the trusts about how records will be handled in conjunction with the executive council? How will they operate together? What will be the remit of the executive council, particularly on data sharing, access to records and management of expectations?

Dr Farrell: The executive council is designed to allow victims and survivors to have an ongoing say. The proposal is for there to be victim and survivor representation on the council, along with other experts who are familiar with human rights archives and records management, trauma-informed practice and so on. The proposal is that the permanent archive can operate within PRONI but as an autonomous operation that is informed by the views of victims and survivors and that takes a trauma-informed approach. That is feeding into the expectations of the victim and survivor representatives whom we have spoken to. It will be an autonomous body, but it is important that it operates in a streamlined fashion within the overall PRONI setup. We have discussed our recommendations with PRONI and taken its views into account. Over the three years of the panel's operation, PRONI has been extremely positive, encouraging and flexible in all of its interactions and dealings with us. PRONI is broadly aware of our recommendations in that regard.

Mrs Erskine: That will be an organic process, I guess. Roisin mentioned that there will be a number of different opinions. It is vital that those opinions are fed through the executive council once this all happens.

Ms McGlone: Absolutely.

Mrs Erskine: Thank you

Mr Gaston: This is very important work that is being undertaken. I want to pick up on a recommendation in the consultation report. Committee members have rightly raised concerns and queries about the centralised archive — a single, permanent archive. I agree that that is needed, but I am disappointed that the archive will be in place only after the inquiry, which could be years down the line.

I want to ask you about organisations' private records. Stewart raised a concern about one organisation that availed itself of TEO's services in order to digitise its records and then took them back again. When we were at PRONI, we learned that quite a number of religious institutions had supplied their records. My concerns about the trusts remain, however. We have heard a number of times that trusts are doing mapping exercises, so that they know where their records are. That leads me to believe that they are still scattered all around the country. I believe that that is where the problem is, and that it is not so much with the religious institutions. I think that the religious institutions have given over what they have. It will be seen in years to come whether they have lost a lot of records. That is another concern of mine, as well as the quality of those records. The way forward is to have a centralised archive, housed by PRONI and its excellent staff.

You said that the testimonies relating to private nursing homes had been the hardest to hear. What you have outlined vindicates the Committee's view that we needed private nursing homes to be included in the Bill. I want to pick up on the point that you made about "baby farming", which really stuck out for me. Can you give us more information on that? What context was that term used in? To what extent did it happen? Was that associated only with private homes, or do you believe that the same thing happened in statutory homes?

Professor O'Connell: Leanne may know more about that than I do. "Baby farming" is a term that originated in the late 19th century. It was associated with the boarding out and fostering of young children and people taking payment to take them. In the most notorious cases in the late 19th century, those babies were allowed to die. People were taking payments for babies who then died after they had insured their lives, so they were benefiting in that respect as well. Most cases of so-called "baby farming" were about making a small profit, and the children were not always very well looked after. A lot of legislation on that was passed in the early 20th century. Our report discussed such cases and the legislation that was passed in this part of the world. We looked at some of the cases of individuals who were involved in baby farming. One case involving a private nursing home led to a court case and was particularly newsworthy and attracted a lot of attention in the 1940s, so we are talking about things that happened a long time ago. One of the arguments that we made about the private nursing homes is that they were unregulated. They were not regulated in the way that other institutions were. They could get away with things that could not have been got away with in some other institutions.

You asked about including private nursing homes in the Bill. We discuss that in the report. There was work that we were not able to do, because we are a non-statutory body. We were not able to demand access to particular records from the General Register Office for Northern Ireland (GRONI), nor did we have a way of accessing hard paper records that would have allowed us to go into GRONI, look up a particular address where we knew there was a private nursing home, look at the births that took place there, determine whether those births were to mothers who were not married, and then compare those to adoption records in order to see whether that private nursing home was, in effect, a de facto mother-and baby-home that operated in the same way as a mother-and baby-institution. We were not able to do that. One of our recommendations is that the public inquiry will use its statutory powers to be able to do that and to identify which, if any, of the private nursing homes should be included in the redress scheme.

Dr Farrell: Timothy, you made a point that I want to comment on, which was about the healthcare trusts and the way in which records are organised currently. You made a very important point about having a centralised archive being perhaps a slightly longer-term undertaking. That does not negate the need for action to be taken in the immediate term in order to safeguard those records. That is addressed in our report. As part of its dealings with us, PRONI visited places where records are stored and issued recommendations to the trusts, the Courts and Tribunals Service and private institutions. Our report addresses the need for immediate, short-term action to be taken, regardless of the longer-term plans for a permanent archive.

Ms McGlone: Timothy, that could happen concurrently with the inquiry; it does not have to be afterwards.

Mr Gaston: What do you mean by that? Could that process start?

Ms McGlone: That process could start now.

Mr Gaston: Is it part of your recommendation that it start now?

Ms McGlone: We have said that all along. We said in our interim report that the access to records and the archive needs to be looked at urgently. The way in which it is at the minute cannot be sustained.

Mr Gaston: It very much comes across that, every time that we have raised concerns about it, there is excuse after excuse about why you cannot. I think that you, Carál, suggested that social workers be based at PRONI —

Ms Ní Chuilín: Yes.

Mr Gaston: — to oversee that. Some of the records of victims and survivors are still being accessed today. I get that, but a lot of records will not be. It would be more cost-effective for the trusts to have people stationed at PRONI to decide what to release and what not to release. The majority of the records would then be in the one place so they would not have to go from Fermanagh to Londonderry to search for records.

Dr Farrell: Yes. We are aware that PRONI, the trusts and the Department of Health have been in discussions about what steps to take in the short term when it comes to exactly those kinds of issues to begin the process of having overall knowledge of what exists and how it is managed.

Professor McCormick: To reiterate that point, we have found from working with PRONI on wider records — this covers all records from all Departments — that many are held in out-storage in different environments. It is not necessarily clear what is there. Nor is it clear how those records then move to PRONI. There are issues with retention and accession. There are big issues with where records were held. The recommendations are about social workers with an active caseload also trying to manage those inquiries. That has meant a lengthy wait for victims and survivors. There are ways of doing things much more effectively.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): As a wee reminder, the Assistant Clerk has a summary of all the actions in this space. Maybe we could recirculate that to members.

Ms Murphy: I will stick to the theme of access to records and those that already sit with PRONI. Have you identified gaps in records, or particular sets of records, that are still missing, especially the types of records that people have extreme difficulty in accessing?

Ms McGlone: There are two levels to that. Leanne may be able to provide a summary of overall archival records. As we say on our website, there is a very mixed experience. As Sean said, there is inconsistency. It is not even necessarily about gaps. When we did the survey, people said to me, "There were an awful lot of fires in those places. It is amazing". Records were then found after people challenged that.

There were gaps in the information that people were given, not necessarily gaps in what was available. Someone made a value judgement on what they would release to victims and survivors. People have challenged that. The Department of Health brought in new guidelines two years ago to manage that. People can apply again. That has been very helpful, but the problem, as Leanne mentioned, is that there is a backlog. If you were, say, a birth mother, and you looked for your records, you could get an A4 page. There may be many pages available, but there may not be.

It depends on the record keepers as well. Some institutions kept detailed records at some stages and less detailed ones at others. Some institutions kept detailed records; others did not. There are gaps like that. As I said, Leanne can talk to the overall gaps, but most people probably complained about the difficulty in getting their records because of the obstacles that they faced and the hoops that they had to jump through. I might have said this to the Committee before, but those are their records. They are not the health trusts' records; they are people's individual records. That is probably what shocked me more than anything. I had a very difficult personal journey, but I honestly did not realise how widespread the difficulties with people getting their records were. Those were people's overall thoughts.

Professor McCormick: As Roisin said, there are two aspects to this: what records are released to people; and what records are available. For many institutions, there are gaps in records. It is about institutional memory. All the institutions have closed, and some of the organisations that ran them do not exist any more, so the records may have passed through several hands during the process. Some records are not available.

Take private nursing homes. They are institutions for which records are not available, largely because of the nature of the institutions. They were, as the name suggests, private nursing homes run by private individuals, and when they closed, records were not retained. They were not held by PRONI or anyone else. They were just seen as old records and were destroyed. Houses changed hands, and records were lost.

Very early on in the process, along with PRONI, we put out calls for records in case people had found them, and records have arrived with us through various processes. However, again, because of the way that records are held — this applies to departmental records as well — even though there may be records in out-storage, we do not know what is there or even if they exist. There are a number of issues with what records are available, and there is then the process of people getting access to them, whether from trusts or from court records. A number of issues have arisen around that process, too.

Ms Murphy: I suppose that that will vary dramatically on a case-by-case basis.

I have one final question off the back of the Deputy Chair's remarks about the fact that the recommendations will be published on 7 July even though the final date for amendments for the Bill's Further Consideration Stage is 22 June. Mark, you said that you have already shared some detailed recommendations with TEO. To date, have any recommendations been shared with TEO that included possible amendments?

Dr Farrell: The shared recommendations that I referred to are specifically on the establishment of the permanent archive, but we have made observations. Sean can speak to the wider issues.

Professor O'Connell: We responded on the legislation a couple of times. TEO is pretty clear about what we think about workhouses — Thorndale industrial home, for example — and posthumous dates. We have been making those points for two and a half years, so they are not new. What will be in the report is not new in those respects. We have written to each of the parties offering the opportunity of a briefing for party representatives. Members of the Committee would probably be the appropriate ones to attend that. We could offer a briefing, possibly in private, on some of the issues, if you want to discuss them with us. We want victims and survivors to see the report first; we do not want anyone to see it before they do. That has been key to the whole process.

Ms Murphy: Victims and survivors have fed in concerns, and, no doubt, a lot of those have been expressed by you in recent years and have led to the Bill being drafted. We certainly do not want, post-Further Consideration Stage — the final point of submitting amendments — to be in a situation where our hands are tied. Thank you very much.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Thank you, and apologies for being in and out. I am just dealing with constituency issues.

Thanks for the report. I have read it a few times now. With regard to the issue of people getting access to records, I declare an interest in twice being in the Department that looks after PRONI. One recommendation states:

What that is saying is that the rules that are there at the minute are not effective.

Dr Farrell: As we have said, the rules are there, but because ownership and control of the records are dispersed among so many organisations, implementation has not been consistent across all organisations. The advantage of a centralised approach would be having a single set of procedures and guidelines that are implemented consistently with appropriate supports for people looking for their records.

Ms Ní Chuilín: That makes sense. We have had at the Committee representatives from TEO, Justice, Health and PRONI giving evidence on the issue. The Department of Health was, and the choice of word is mine, precious about what it called "its records". Our fear is that once the inquiry happens and people are applying for redress, even for the initial standardised payment, if they cannot get access to even the basic records, that is going to be really difficult for them. In my opinion, the Department of Health has known for quite some time that this was coming. The Department probably feels that it has done a lot, but, as things stand, there is no central repository for an archive. That is why I suggest having a social worker in PRONI and putting the records in PRONI.

You are looking for legislation that would compel religious orders or private institutions to hand over their records, along with the trusts, to a central, permanent repository.

Dr Farrell: Yes, that is the proposal, although, as I said in response to Timothy's comments and as you have identified, there is a need for immediate action. The prospect of a permanent archive in the longer term does not negate the need for those issues to be addressed in the immediate term.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Here and now.

Dr Farrell: That is stated in our report.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Yes, I saw that.

Dr Farrell: We draw attention to the need for the trusts and others to address those issues in the immediate term.

Ms Ní Chuilín: That is another example — not that we needed one — of the immediacy in all of this. I appreciate that you launch your report on 7 July and that you want survivors and victims to get it first, and that is the right thing to do. However, the Committee needs to write to the Department of Health to say that we have had sight of the report. We also need to flag up again that many survivors and victims are constantly raising concerns about getting access to their records, particularly from the trusts. After this, what are the next steps?

Ms McGlone: That is something that I am concerned about. It is the victims and survivors who have brought the process to where we are now. We put the report together, and it is a robust report. What happens to the recommendations? Is there a mechanism available to implement them? I am not clear that there is. There will be a public inquiry. Who will oversee it? Who will look at the recommendations and say, "Is the public inquiry implementing them or the Executive?"? I am not sure what mechanism is next. When you have been part of something for three years — blood, sweat and tears have gone into the report —

Ms Ní Chuilín: Absolutely.

Ms McGlone: — you think to yourself, "What happens next?". I feel a responsibility to the people who put their trust in us. I just wonder what the next stage is.

Professor O'Connell: The truth recovery process was designed to work in tandem with the public inquiry. We have answers for some of your questions because we will advise the chair to act in certain ways, although the chair can reject our advice and do what they want instead. We know the answers to what comes next. Ironically, however, it would mean that the legislation had been passed long before our report was finished. The original timetable was that we would submit after two years and meet the chair of the public inquiry after working for 18 months, and that person would have started to establish the processes for the public inquiry. We are out of kilter with the original timetable.

Ms Ní Chuilín: The pressure has always been there.

Professor O'Connell: The pressure has not gone away.

Ms Ní Chuilín: It is not a surprise.

Professor O'Connell: Yes.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Once we see the fleshed-out recommendations, the Committee can think about how it can support the Executive Office.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Chair, I would like the recommendations to be given to the likes of Stephen Orme to compare them with the Bill in its current form post Consideration Stage. We might need to table amendments at Further Consideration Stage: we cannot make amendments at the Final Stage, so that will be our last opportunity to do so. The delay in the timetable has given us an opportunity to make amendments. However, we should make sure that the text of the Bill reflects the recommendations.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I am with you now. That is good. Can we get the recommendations with the proviso that we do not make them public?

Professor O'Connell: We would need to speak to the rest of the panel about that.

Ms McGlone: I am not sure what we are saying. We have already made representations to TEO about what we think should be in the Bill.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Let me explain. You have already done that, but I need to make sure that what you told TEO is reflected in the Bill.

Ms McGlone: We are quite happy to give you that.

Ms Ní Chuilín: If it is reflected in the Bill, fine. However, there is a recommendation for legislation to give vires to the inquiry. If that is not in the legislation, the inquiry chair could rightly say, "It's not in the legislation. I don't have to do it; I don't have to look at it".

Professor O'Connell: That is the point about the legislation for the archives.

Ms Ní Chuilín: We are talking about legislation, and part of the Bill considers access to records. We need to compare and contrast the provisions in the Bill with your recommendations to make sure that they align.

Ms McGlone: We can give you the recommendations on archives and access to records and the recommendations that we made to TEO.

Ms Ní Chuilín: Can you get the recommendations to Martin Corry as soon as possible? Then we can work on a comparison. The Committee's amendments need to be tabled by 17June.

Professor O'Connell: We are happy to meet you offline to discuss any questions.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): How will your work be reflected in the inquiry? Will people be asked to give their testimony again? It is a good suggestion. If you speak to the rest of the panel and get their agreement, we could get sight of the recommendations to do a comparison.

Can I pick up on the numbers? The original report said that there were 10,500 people, but you have over 12,000 individuals from the mother-and-baby homes and the 3,500 figure for the Magdalene laundries has gone up to 3,750. Obviously, you have spent time getting records, but what is the profile? We have had issues with the redress scheme, and I thought that the earlier parts of the 1900s would have been front-loaded. Can you give me an understanding of when the extra people were in the institutions?

Professor O'Connell: I can answer one part of that, but maybe Leanne can answer it better.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Leanne, do you want to go first?

Professor McCormick: Yes. The extra numbers have come partly from the fact that we have had access to more comprehensive records this time around. When we looked at the calculations, those numbers have increased as well. That largely accounts for the increase.

As for the profile, over the years we see the largest numbers in mother-and-baby institutions. It is really in the 1960s that the profile is often slightly different in that a number of the institutions were only established in the 1940s and 1950s. However, the largest numbers in that peak are in the 1960s, with the numbers declining gradually into the 1970s and very rapidly into the 1980s.

In the earlier period, you see considerable use being made of the workhouses until they closed across Northern Ireland in 1948. Institutions such as Malone Place, which also closed in 1948, and Thorndale were widely used, but the overall peak of those numbers from mother-and-baby institutions was in the 1960s.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Thank you very much for all your work and for coming today. We really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Professor O'Connell: Thank you.

Ms McGlone: Thank you.