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

I welcome the opportunity to look at the Department's Estimates and spending, particularly given that it seemed to be the overriding concern when it came to denying redress for thousands of survivors of mother and baby institutions. The main finding of the Department's report was that survivors want redress to be based on forced family separation as a priority. Time spent in an institution was much lower down on the list. We have had UN human rights officials saying the same thing. Thousands of ordinary people have emailed all the public representatives here. This committee has continuously repeated its belief that redress should be based on other things, including forced family separation. Ultimately, nobody should be excluded. Will the Minister provide the estimates for how much it would have cost to include those groups in the scheme?