The Institutional Burials Act 2022 was signed into Law on 13th July 2022. Based on the preamble of the Act, it provides for:
- The appointment from time to time by the Government of a corporation sole, to be called a Director of Authorised Intervention, for the purposes of excavating land associated with an institution owned, operated, controlled or funded by a public body and, having regard to the need to accord dignity to persons buried in that land, recovering human remains buried in that land in a manifestly inappropriate manner.
- Post-recovery analysis of recovered human remains.
- Where appropriate, for the establishment of an Identification Programme.
- The participation of certain relatives of persons thought to be buried in the land concerned in the Programme.
- The establishment, by Forensic Science Ireland, of a DNA (Historic Remains) Database and a related Database for personal information for the purposes of that Programme.
- For final arrangements for the human remains recovered from such land.
- Those and related purposes to enable a Director in certain circumstances to access and carry out works over principal burial land and ancillary burial land and, where necessary, on land ancillary to principal burial land and ancillary burial land and to provide for the payment of compensation in certain circumstances to persons for interference with an interest in or right over such land.
- For the carrying out of remedial works on land when work on the land concerned is completed.
- The establishment of an Advisory Board to provide advice and guidance to a Director in the performance of his or her functions.
- A relevant Minister may make regulations, having regard to potential developments in forensic science, to enable forensic testing of samples in certain circumstances for the purposes of identification of human remains after an Identification Programme is completed.
- On the dissolution of an Office of Director, for the transfer of any remaining functions, rights, liabilities and records to a relevant Minister.
- Amend the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and the Planning and Development Act 2000.
- Related matters.
For further information, see the following links:
