Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, as always. I compliment him on his choice of the members of the commission whom I happen to know, namely, Judge Yvonne Murphy, Professor Mary Daly and Dr. William Duncan. He has chosen people who will serve the Oireachtas well in their work. As others have said, we are finding out more and more awful things about how children and their mothers were treated. A predecessor of mine, former Senator Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, came here almost every day to complain about corporal punishment in schools.A predecessor of the Minister, former Deputy John Boland abolished it. I hope this is a good precedent for the representative of Fingal who is with us this afternoon. I welcome the references to Catherine Corless and her work on this.
I used to hear stories about children being buried in other countries and I thought they were fictional. The fact that this has come home to haunt us in this country is appalling. The isle of saints and scholars is disappearing under the weight of all the bad things we have discovered in recent times. We could include the practice of imprisoning unwanted relatives in county homes in places such as Ballinasloe, Mullingar, Sligo and Castlebar. Sometimes, things get better, and I hope we are more enlightened than when single parenthood was despised. We must examine the role of officialdom. I do not want another report to find that it was a systems failure. People were in charge of budgets for these organisations. We hear the inspections were not up to par. We should not shelter officials, or anybody who has questions to answer, under the cloak of systems failure. The culture of "whatever you say, say nothing" has discredited the country.
I support the amendment on the basis of correspondence I have received. Given the nature of the Trinity College Seanad constituency, I have many constituents in Northern Ireland. A man wrote to me saying, "We were excluded from the Ryan commission, the 2002 redress schedule and now we are excluded from the list of institutions to be investigated by the above commission." This hurts people. He went on to write:

Many of us who remain outside the scope of the investigation will find that personal exclusion most hurtful. A lifetime of marginalisation is now to continue with little prospect of even acknowledgement of their experiences.

He mentioned the recent Italian room meeting the Minister had with groups when the Minister was emphatic in stating that the commission will not be empowered to investigate any person's life, not even the lives of those whose institutions are listed for investigation. He also wrote:

We are asking you to please reflect before the vote on Wednesday if all institutions and survivors are recognised within the terms of reference, not the few. The investigation could be the one to end all investigations. If this is not done, we are simply repeating the mistakes of the past, the wound is not being healed and the agony will continue.

He particularly mentioned, as Senator Norris did, people coming from across the Border, in connection with the Plymouth Brethren and Bray Gospel Hall running the Westbank institution in Greystones. Apparently, the justification for the Plymouth Brethren taking it over was to prevent the children from becoming Roman Catholics. There are very grim statements about what went on there and the Bethany Home, Westbank institution, Church of Ireland Magdalen Home, Nursery Rescue Society and Braemor House are also mentioned.
The Minister has got a very good team together and has given them a budget of €6 million. Let us ensure it is comprehensive. I commend Senator Power, who has always taken a great interest in this area, and who has done so much research. She has assembled a list and the amendment should be accepted to ensure the institutions are covered, the hurt is not left and the Minister's successor will not have to have yet another inquiry in the future. As the letter writer from Northern Ireland said, let us do the job now. We can begin by accepting Senator Power's amendment.