Ms Amanda Larkin:

Can I come in on memorialisation? I know the Deputy mentioned it but I do not believe Sidney or Alice covered it. To be clear, the group I represent and with which I work feels it is extremely distressing to visualise memorialisation. It is too difficult right now in Tuam for them to do that. We are not near that path.

With the survivor-centred plan that has been promised by the Government, we feel that we can look at that down the line after the excavation of the illegal burial site. There is time for that. With the collaborative forum, I know a new structure is being looked at and will be rolled out. There are, therefore, changes coming along that path as well. That is coming quite quickly from the Department; it is not slow.

The Deputy spoke about information and communicating with survivors and families. It is something I have raised for the past four years with anybody who has visited Tuam. I know Deputy Dillon and Chair will be aware of the idea of a Tuam hub for the mother and baby home.

At the moment if a person finds out that he or she is from the Tuam home, or has anything to do with it, there is no national number for survivors or families to ring. There is no information hotline from the Government that a person can ring and find out information. A person's information centre is Ms Catherine Corless in Tuam. When someone Googles it, that is the only name he or she will find. Ms Corless has become the information centre for everybody. Whether she chose it or wanted it, that is how it is. I have said to Ministers and to everybody that it is not fair to put that pressure on one person. We have thanked her and the Taoiseach stood in this very room and thanked her for the work she has done. He did not acknowledge the ongoing work she is doing, however. The Government has not picked up and put in place something for people.

What I suggest, and I suppose it goes against what Alice said, is the collaborative forum and an information centre in Tuam for the mother and baby home. Let people have one wherever there was a mother and baby home or an institution. It is a one-stop shop for survivors where they can meet and come through different situations together. Facilities and things would be made available to them for accessing records, grants and medical stuff and help filling out forms. Remember, it is easy to say to the survivor that all the information is here. If that survivor cannot read and write, however, it is going nowhere.

That is the main point I am making to the Government at the moment. All the information that comes to survivors comes through email. We are dealing with survivors in their 70s and 80s. They do not have email. If they have email, we are entrusting it to an advocate to then read that email and tell that person his or her opinion of that email. We are actually taking the power from the hands of living witnesses and survivors. That is very unfair. It should be given back to them. The buck should stop with them and they should choose who they want to go to.

An information centre in Tuam for the mother and baby home would really cover that. I do not know if it is something that has to be there for 50 years or for a year but it should certainly be there. There are plenty of buildings in Tuam. I am sure Galway County Council would be more than accommodating in giving us a range of buildings from which to choose. It would have to be a building and not a room, however. It should be an entire building in which people could access different resources.