Ms Maree Ryan-O'Brien:

I thank the Deputy. This probably ties in more with our suggestions regarding the development of an agency that is outside a purely institutional burials remit, and more towards one encompassing all experiences reflective of the history of forced and coercive adoption, incarceration, institutions and so on. One of the main issues with this Bill is that it is, again, very piecemeal. It focuses on one aspect as opposed to a whole, holistic approach. To give the Deputy an example, I am an adoptee but I did not come through the mother and baby home system. As such, I have been outside the remit of the commission of investigation and so on, as have thousands of others.

We also have an ongoing issue with regard to illegal adoptions, which is subject, hopefully, to further investigation. Of course, there have been documented difficulties with the final report of the commission of investigation. We see the restorative element coming in as a holistic element within a stand-alone agency, which would deal with all of these matters in, as I said, a holistic way rather than on a piecemeal basis. Only then can we begin to appreciate how interwoven this is. For example, it would not be unexpected that adoptees who came through one home would have siblings who died in another. We cannot keep looking at it on an isolated basis. We need to look at it more and then develop this restorative aspect where we can incorporate truth telling and supports for victims who came through this system, rather than just looking it as specific to one home, one agency or one remit. We need to look at it as part of an overall, progressive aspect, which could then build in further legislation around information and tracing, as Deputy Cairns touched on. Truth telling would be an aspect of both restorative and transitional justice. We need to acknowledge this.

In order for us to have legislation that is effective and to be able to have the databases to pull on for identifications, it is entirely foreseeable that we may have bodies who were, sadly, interred on these grounds that we cannot identify. We need to be able to work with families. As Ms Coughlan touched on, there are families who, even now, would not understand that they were somehow included or implicated in these burials, in the institutional abuses that went on and in forced and coercive adoption. We need to be future-forward as regards legislation to see where it will go, not just where we are now but how it will develop in the future.