Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Tyndall for coming in today. It is fair to say we are in an unprecedented situation. To be honest, his report was scathing. It revealed a deeply flawed administrative process which resulted in women being wrongfully denied an entitlement they had and it is clear that has deeply affected Mr. Tyndall. I thank him for his compassion in that regard but how did we get here and what is being done to address it now? It struck me that Mr. Tyndall stated in the report that this scheme was supposed to be brought in to deal with the hurt and pain caused and it has led to more hurt and more pain. Basically, people were told they are liars when they outlined their experiences, and their testimony was held up against what was not even evidence by the religious institutions but the word of the religious institutions that a particular woman was not in the laundry for the time. In his report, Mr. Tyndall stated that that was not even questioned. The Department did not even ask for evidence to support what the congregations were saying and then dismissed the testimony of the women and disempowered them in the process.

Mr. Tyndall's report is powerful. I have never seen the like of it, and I thank him for that, but we need to address how we got here and if the issue will be addressed. We will make points to the Department, but in its response initially, the former Secretary General said that Mr. Tyndall had a fundamental misunderstanding of the scheme and that if more staff had been interviewed about the administration of the scheme, he might have understood it better. If more interviews had been held with the staff, would that have made a difference to Mr. Tyndall? Subsequent to his report, I tabled some questions and the Minister has assured us that the scheme was administered with compassion, dedication and so on. Is there anything Mr. Tyndall can add to that because we want to put questions to the Department? In his report Mr. Tyndall said the Department was consulted extensively so there is a discrepancy between what is being said and in terms of where we are at now. Mr. Tyndall might deal with that issue first.