Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

When the Minister speaks about the potential consequences of repudiating the report, and how future Governments could repudiate a report based on findings about that Government, for example as the Minister referred to earlier, I can acknowledge that there are consequences there and that it is something that needs to be looked at. I fully understand what the Minister means about that. It is, however, important for us to acknowledge here today that there are consequences for not repudiating a report that has incorrect findings and which did not even produce any kind of methodology into how it came about those findings. This needs to be acknowledged. It is actually very sickening to hear the Minister say in response to Senator Clonan that he would take that approach on memorialisation, about which the Senator spoke so eloquently. That approach has not been taken in relation to any of the other legislation that we have been dealing with. Why is it just with memorialisation? Is it because there is no cost to the State then? The consequences of a report with incorrect findings like that has an impact on issues such as redress. The Minister spoke about the redress scheme as if it is fantastic, but of course if the report found that there were these obscene human rights violations in them, redress would be more appropriate for the crimes that were committed. Perhaps a person might get €5,000. That is ridiculous. That a person must have been in an institution for longer than six months is, again, ridiculous. Of course there are consequences to having this report. If we are acknowledging the consequences of potentially repudiating it, it must also be acknowledged that there are consequences to not doing that.