Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024. The State has repeatedly let down survivors of residential institutional abuse and this legislation is yet another example.

It is interesting that this legislation is being put forward by the Department of Education. We had the Department of children previously.

It shows that this is a whole-of-government approach to actually perpetrating the wrongs that have gone on and compounding them rather than sorting them out and dealing with them. That is sad. It is sad that the State has facilitated this and forced people to live through what they went through in the mother and baby homes and residential institutions, with the abuse that happened there. The State knew about it. The records of this House show that the State knew about it, going back to the 1930s. It was discussed in this House. It was not that the State did not know. The State facilitated it and passed it along to the church to allow it to carry it out because it was easy. The State said it did not have to deal with it but could pass it on to the church to look after. Then the State wrung its hands about something happening when it was actually found out.

The problem is that, no matter what, we keep perpetrating this abuse on people. That is sad. It can be seen from the brilliant resource the Library and Research Service has provided for this Bill, the digest in which it analyses what is in it, what is not in it and how it continues with the abuse. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we will probably have to come back again to finish this process off. The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 was disgraceful and included cruel exclusions, such as the well-known minimum 180-day residency requirement to access payments and medical cards under the scheme. It was a perpetuation of past harms and is a retraumatisation for survivors. This legislation is sadly not much better.

The mother and baby institutions payment scheme did not provide additional financial redress for those who experienced racial abuse, forced family separation and medical experimentation. It did not give an opportunity for formal recognition of survivor experiences. It did not oblige religious orders and those involved in running the mother and baby homes to contribute financially to payments for survivors. In summary, it did not listen to survivors. I think that is key to all this process. There has been no listening to survivors. Survivors have been able to talk but the State has not taken on board anything that survivors have said about it. That is what is wrong across the board.

We have a devastating history in this country of not listening to survivors of abuse or wrongdoing. We have seen examples of this time and again. This Government has not learned from our mistakes and continues to ignore survivors of abuse in Irish legislation, despite plenty of consultation with them. It is extremely cruel to force survivors to go through this consultation, to relive their past traumas, to assess what is needed in their lives and to advise what will assist them in trying to move on and live their lives, only for these requests to be completely ignored. The digest quotes the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Agency, which stated:

The victim is no longer pleading for help on the basis of their vulnerability, pressing needs and deservingness but demanding that the state should take seriously what it owes to the individuals living on its territory and their human rights. The state is no longer in the comfortable and patronising position of a more or less generous Good Samaritan, but a duty-bearer indebted to the individuals living under its jurisdiction as rights-holders.

We have a duty and we are ignoring it completely. It is a disgraceful way to treat anyone, never mind those who have already been forced to go through so much. Survivors are still forced to endure many challenges today. A 2015 report commissioned by Caranua found that "the current living conditions of survivors are highly disadvantaged when compared with the population as a whole". The 2019 consultation with survivors report outlined that a significant number of survivors are living in poverty and may have mental health problems and that some are socially isolated and homeless. This is absolutely disgraceful and should be a source of immense shame for this Government and indeed for all citizens and Members of this House. I am horrified at the way survivors have been treated. It is so deeply unjust that they are forced to endure so much with so little support.

Human rights bodies, including the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, have outlined fundamental human rights principles that redress schemes should adhere to and this Government has continuously failed to adhere to these principles. The commission is funded by the Government to advise on what is happening and it has been ignored. It can be argued that the Government has failed to adhere to all five of the principles, namely, promptness, participation, adequacy and effectiveness, accessibility, non-discrimination and the principle of do no harm. However, it particularly failed to adhere to three of them. The principle of participation requires that victims should be meaningfully involved in the development of schemes, yet it has been made clear by many survivors that they were not satisfied with the mother and baby institutions payment scheme.

The principles also state that particular groups of victims should not be excluded in any way. Despite this, the Government has continued to exclude victims. There are many victims who were excluded in last year's legislation and there are many excluded in the legislation we are discussing today. The principles outline that the redress mechanisms should avoid the retraumatisation of victims and their families and ensure that they are treated with dignity and humanity, but unfortunately the Government has failed at ensuring this as well.

The Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill is extremely disappointing legislation, although sadly, at this stage, this is not surprising. The legislation leaves out so much and leaves so many behind. It fails to give survivors access to an enhanced HAA medical card, which has been a priority concern for survivors for a long time. Many survivors have suffered many health issues as a result of the abuse and trauma of institutionalisation. The very least that could be afforded to them is a medical card to address any medical issue they may experience. Rather than give the HAA medical card to them, the Department goes through a convoluted process for how it will assess needs at a later stage and maybe give enhanced medical benefits by going through that whole assessment. The digest states that section 4(2):

permits the Minister for Education and the HSE to disclose to each other, and process, certain personal data, where necessary and proportionate, for the purpose of providing the health services and supports comprising the enhanced medical card. Section 2 of the Bill clarifies that the phrases "personal data", "special categories of personal data", and "processing", in relation to personal data, have the same meanings in the Bill as they have in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

It also states that section 2 also clarifies that references in the Bill to "suitable and specific measures" mean measures safeguarding everything. It continues, "As discussed below, section 19(2) permits the Minister for Education to prescribe by regulations suitable and specific measures for the processing of personal data". It is all to give additional cards, when the Government could give permission for the HAA card to be granted to those people right from the very start. It would cut out that whole process. The reality is that that process will not happen. That is the thing about it. People will not get the benefit from it. We know that will happen in this process.

There should be no question of survivors’ entitlement to a contributory pension to recognise all the unpaid work they did in residential institutions and to give them the security to live out the rest of their lives without worry or financial stress. The fact that this has not been addressed in the Bill or previous legislation is outrageous. Survivors worked for years in residential institutions without payment and this needs to be acknowledged and compensated. Not only this, but survivors should be entitled to it anyway in recognition of the long-term consequences of working in such institutions and the effect that this has had on their career prospects, as well as the physical and mental effects that working in such an institution would have.

The Department has said that the purpose of this Bill is to provide health and education supports for survivors of residential abuse, but it should be said that the purpose of the Bill is to provide health and education supports to some survivors of residential abuse. This legislation follows in the footsteps of previous legislation by excluding certain survivors. That is an absolute disgrace. Survivors have repeatedly highlighted the importance of equal supports and services for all survivors, including those who did not receive an award from the residential institutions redress board or a similar court award or settlement. The legislation only addresses those who received an award of redress from the residential institutions board, which stopped receiving applications in 2011, and the scheme was subsequently closed. Survivors looking to apply for redress in the last 13 years have not been able to do so and now they are being denied the opportunity to receive health and education supports too.

The Government's insistence on continuously excluding survivors from schemes is barbaric and it is a choice. It has been explicitly asked by survivor groups not to do this and it has been advised by human rights bodies to ensure that redress adheres to the principles of accessibility, equality and non-discrimination in its design and implementation, and should not exclude or marginalise any particular group of victims. The Government is choosing to do this and I cannot understand why. Ensuring that all survivors have access to health and education supports would not cost the State a considerable amount. The cost of exclusion is much higher. Reading through the Bill, it talks about how it will support people to access SUSI grants. These are people in their 60s and 70s. How many of them will go on to do higher education at this stage? Very few. There is nothing that provides for their families, who have been at a disadvantage too over their lifetime, but nothing in this Bill provides for the families. The Bill expressly does not provide for them, even though the survivor group had asked for that too.

That is an ongoing problem. The Government is choosing to do this and I cannot understand why. Ensuring that all survivors have access to health and education supports would not cost the State a considerable amount. The cost of exclusion is much higher.

In addition, the €3,000 once-off payment for former residents living overseas is wholly insufficient, especially given that almost 40% of survivors are living abroad. There is also the question of how that could affect their entitlements should they, for example, be subject to a possible means test in the UK. From what I can see, the Department is only starting to look at that now and to talk to these survivors. Surely that could have been addressed as part of the process and provisions could have been included to provide services for people rather than providing a cash payment, so that it might not impact on a means test. The Department's response that it is a matter for the UK system is disingenuous.

Survivors should be in the position to refuse re-institutionalisation in their older age given the past trauma of institutionalisation. Section 4 includes some home nursing and home support services, but these services do not go far enough and do not provide the financial support to ensure survivors and their families are not forced to consider re-institutionalisation at an older age. The thought that they might go into another institution must be very traumatic for survivors. Even though institutions have changed and the system might be slightly different, the trauma and effects they have lived through will impact on survivors.

Overall, the legislation compounds the problems and does not deal with the situation. It has ignored survivors and does not listen to them. That is a problem. If it was evident that the Minister had listened to survivors, the Bill would have been a lot better, even if it provided a lot less, and people could have supported it.

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