Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is very fitting that Senator Boyhan is the Acting Chairperson today. The Senator's contribution to the House last week was a very important one.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Much has already been said about the report. From my perspective it is hard to put into words the sense of horror and shame reading some of the women's testimonies and the report of the confidential committee. Reflected in the body of the report was that women were treated worse than animals. Many of the women had zero idea of what was happening to their bodies. There was no information. There was no understanding as to how babies were made or born. This was even before the women were dealt with the worst psychological cruelties during the births of their babies and afterwards. Many of us who are fortunate to have been willingly pregnant and who have given birth will know the anxieties and the distress of giving birth, but many of us did it in an environment of love, support and encouragement, even during the pandemic. That contrasts so starkly with the experiences of thousands of women in the State during the years covered by this report.

We cannot turn back the clock. The traumas inflicted on women and the children who are now adults cannot be undone. The Government can, however, use all of its might and main to do all it can to make sure we do the right thing by survivors.

I will touch on three things, the first being remedying the commission's findings, especially the parts that have caused most hurt, and in particular that women were not forced into these homes. Unfortunately, the commission appears to take a very legalistic view. Perhaps women were not bundled into the back of a car but the women had no other option. This is repeated in the report time and again.

Second, we need to make sure the Government ensures access to all records, including birth certificates, church records and administrative files. The commission talks about how little information is contained in some of these files but when a person has nothing, a little information is everything. We have had so many people contacting us with just a fake birth certificate. At least allowing access to all of the information that is available is very important.

Most important, we need to get right the system of redress. We need the Government to reject and amend recommendation No. 27 whereby: "The Commission considers that women who entered Mother and Baby Homes after 1973 do not have a case for financial redress." This is astounding and arbitrary. It ignores the social and economic context of the time. It is black and white. I believe that all Members in this Chamber would acknowledge that we need to move away from the black and white time that is described so vividly in the report, hopefully to a time now where everybody needs to be considered. Everyone who had experience in those homes had very different experiences. In considering that recommendation, a question needs to be asked of the commission and of the Government.Do we really believe that in 1973, when the then Minister, the late Frank Cluskey, introduced the unmarried mother's allowance, it was meant to be the magic wand with which we could wave goodbye to a previous era and women would, all of a sudden, be emancipated and be able to forge a life for themselves and their babies? It was a significant development but it was just the first step. The thousands of teenagers and young mothers who gave birth after finding themselves pregnant in the 1970s and 1980s had no choice but to go into the home. We have seen that with the statistics in the body of the report. It states 30% of babies born out of wedlock to unmarried mothers in 1973 were born in mother and baby homes. That figure did not drop dramatically; it was a steady decline until 1991.

Women had no options and there was State-sanctioned censure of babies born out of wedlock. The awful status of "illegitimate" was only lifted in 1986. We need to change the recommendation. I urge the Government and the Minister to consider the report of Dr. Anthony McCashin, produced in 1993 for the ESRI and dependent on data from the 1980s and the early part of the 1990s, relating to women on the unmarried mother's allowance. It describes poverty, with 35% of those women living below the poverty line, and a minimal earnings disregard within the allowance. There was no offset for any childcare and these women faced discrimination in the labour market. Women in receipt of the unmarried mother's allowance did not have great options. It was a support but it was certainly not the be all and end all.

I am up against the clock but this report calls for a central repository of records from institutions and adoption societies. This report will not bring closure to the era and in some ways we hope it is the start of people beginning to be able to get more information on their past. I urge the Government to commit to a dedicated archive and locate it on Sean McDermott Street. There are fantastic proposals for the site and it would be very fitting for the Government to provide financial support and for the Department to have the central repository located there.