Ep 441 Sealing The Records: Maeve O'Rourke & Mary Harney

For years now, campaigners and activists have been calling on the government to prevent records compiled by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes from being sealed for 30 years. Proposed legislation related to the commission’s records, the Records Bill, was brought forward by Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman and the debate continues this week in Dail. Organisations such as the Clann Project, Justice for Magdalenes and the Adoption Rights Alliance are all against the records being sealed. They say it will result in people being unable to access information “disappeared" relatives or babies "buried in unmarked graves." In today's episode we asked human rights lawyer Maeve O’Rourke to talk to us about the issues and about her long battle together with with the Clann Project to ensure that women survivors of human rights abuses in Ireland get access to their personal information. Also with us was Mary Harney, a woman now in her seventies who was born in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork. Mary told us her life story and explained the devastating repercussions of being denied access to information about her identity.

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