Ms Maree Ryan-O'Brien:

With regard to the apology, it was quite significant that every respondent to the context survey felt the Taoiseach's apology was insufficient. They felt it did not sufficiently address it as an issue and it was not cognisant of the fact that a significant portion of people were unable to participate due to the limited remit. This was not that Government's issue as the Taoiseach was not in government when the commission was set up. The recommendation we make is that it needs to be revisited, that it needs to be done in a broader sense and that it needs to be more inclusive. Doing what happened created an artificial stratification of the issue. There were people within the remit and people not within the remit and there were also people who were illegally adopted. All of these people have suffered. Birth parents have suffered, adoptees have suffered and survivors have suffered. This needs to be addressed as one holistic issue. I hope the participation model, what shape it could take and how it should be delivered would be discussed and that there would be input from everybody. The only way we can move towards healing is if we can address these shortcomings and if people feel as if they are being heard and can move on from it. Very much at the core of restorative justice is identifying the harm and repairing it. The harm has not been repaired. The harm has been compounded, ignored and muted.

With regard to the language, we use the example in the report of a sentence said by the former Minister, Katherine Zappone. I was not singling her out in any way. It was simply one that stuck in my mind at that time. She spoke about protecting a small cohort of potentially vulnerable birth parents. Within this was the inference that adoptees were a threat. We need to look at how language has damaged and marginalised. Even if we go back through transcripts of debates in the past, it is very clear that adoptees were presented as a threat and as people who would impinge upon the privacy of another person.

There is also the language around words like "real", "unreal", "natural", "first" and so on. This further contributes to marginalisation from an adoptee's perspective. This is why I feel the language around this needs to be further developed and explored outside of what it is at present into more inclusive terms that are mindful of everybody's position and feelings and are respectful of them. The shame and stigma felt by adoptees, and the feelings and depth of feelings as regards marginalisation, being ignored, being overlooked and not quite fitting in, have not been in any way addressed or identified. They seem to be largely misunderstood or not understood at all. One respondent described it as being a square peg in a round hole. People are looking for mirroring or a biological connection that is not there. Being mindful of all of these issues and the extensive recommendations we have made in the report, we need to take all of them on board and have a model of participation that brings all of these diverse opinions on board. This is very clearly outlined by Dr. Marder in our report. Having a more holistic, broader, accurate and inclusive view of what happened in the past will allow us to move towards the future.