Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for engaging with us, whether it is in the Seanad or at this committee.

We have all been taken aback by personal testimonies, including those of Senator Victor Boyhan, Independent Councillor Francis Timmons in Dublin or Independent Councillor Mary Linehan-Foley in Cork. It must have been really difficult for Councillor Linehan-Foley, as a survivor, to stand up last week and apologise. My thoughts were with her last week when she did that.

The witnesses who gave evidence to the commission will be very disappointed to hear that the evidence taken down was summarised. I have no doubt that, once again, they will feel this is a slap in the face and that they are just a footnote in the pages of history. I am really disappointed to learn that their testimony was summarised.

I, too, have received emails from very many people seeking an extension of the commission. We are here to serve the survivors. As I said last week at a meeting, there is a fine line between what this commission is to do and what the Government is to do. Our foremost duty must be to the survivors and whatever happens must be survivor-led.

The transfer of the information to the Department will enable the survivors to get their information quicker. Before the information goes to the Department, have the 550 people who gave testimony been contacted by the commission to say their documents are to be forwarded to Tusla? If so, how many have been contacted?

On the issue of GlaxoSmithKline and the church breaching ethical standards, the Minister stated he would write to them. Why has he not written to them to date? He has had the report for nearly three months so he should have written to them. I urge him to do that tomorrow. We need to find out what role the GlaxoSmithKline and the church had and what documents they may have on the vaccination programme.

The survivors need restorative and reparative justice. I welcome Deputy Crowe's point on ways that we can support the survivors into their old age. Anything that we can do to make their lives easier we must do. So many people are responsible for this. I read the report and cried for many hours. I cried at the naivety of the young and not so young women. They had no sex education.

We have moved on as a nation and learned from the mistakes we made in the past, but the wounds will not heal until the survivors can access those documents. The wounds are theirs. The public and their hunger for righteousness can sometimes overshadow the needs of the survivor. Those people have suffered for decades and their wounds have been open for so long. They want those wounds to be closed and those scars healed. The sooner we get that information through the Department, whether redacted or not, the better.