Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

The background to this change in the legislation is the fact that the State has spent upwards of €1.8 billion on the victims of abuse at the hands of the religious orders in schools and institutions. It is somewhat ironic that we are having this debate against the backdrop of the publication of the Cloyne Report. It is true that a considerable amount of money was expended to produce this report, but the cost to the State in this instance is primarily because of the shoddy deal done by Fianna Fáil in government and the religious orders, allowing many of them off the hook. Significant legal fees were claimed also. It is not a great deal of money when one considers what the thousands of victims have been put through by the severe trauma of abuse and the lifetime of carrying emotional and physical scars from the abuse they experienced in their early years. I think it is relevant that we are discussing this Bill at the same time as the publication of the Cloyne Report. As Deputy O'Sullivan has said this is another report, opening up the wounds of so many victims. We see it from the increased numbers accessing the helplines to seek assistance. What that really tells us is that in the context it is not appropriate to put a deadline on these cases of preventing people from having access to the Redress Board because there are some people who will not be aware but others may not be in a position to deal with the issues, even after all these years. They still need time, given the severity of the trauma and people not dealing with it. To pick an arbitrary date is in my mind unacceptable.

It is worth talking about the money involved when this is being motivated by limiting costs. Let us look at the costs that were incurred in the publication of the Cloyne Report, €140 million in investigating one parish. It has been estimated that if they were to investigate all of the parishes the cost would run to billions. What is the point of these reports? It really is a bit of sick joke at this stage. We know what went on, we have had so many reports it is clear the abuse that took place, but when was anybody prosecuted or called to account arising from these reports and in that sense what is the point in incurring more expense on those reports? These are criminal matters. The State should be spearheading the justice system to deal with them, but not one person has been dealt with in that regard. If the State wants to save money, it should be saved by not commissioning reports and insisting that the State take action against those criminally responsible for those activities.

The reality is that the abuse scandals are embedded in the history of the State and with its links with the Catholic Church, in particular. The Catholic Church has played a dominant and influential role in Irish society over the decades from the drawing up of the Constitution to the running of schools and hospitals. It is not enough to say that the church bears sole responsibility for that situation. The State is absolutely culpable in that regard. The State bent the knee, quite happy to see children, the elderly the sick given over to the church, saving the State a fortune in that regard. The church was allowed to hide the unwanted, those for whom nobody wanted to take responsibility and the State did not give a damn about what happened to those people. There is no appropriate level of compensation or money that can undo the harm that was done to those people but the least we can do is give them some recognition, some apology and some assistance in their later years. Rather than shutting the door, there is a very strong argument, as other Deputies suggested, for amending the legislation in order to extend it to other victims who as yet have been outside the loop and have suffered just as much, those in the Magdalene laundries and those in institutions run by the Church of Ireland, such as the Bethany Home. I think it is galling and I do not know how Deputies in the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government have the nerve, having made public statements while in opposition, to now do the complete opposite. I am seriously embarrassed for them. This is yet another example of it. The then Opposition parties gave clear commitments on these issues and now when they have the opportunity in government to do something about it, they are walking away from it.

I will not repeat all the points made by other Deputies but there is no debate about the issue of the Magdalene laundries or the Bethany Home. There is irrefutable evidence that the State and the courts colluded in sending women to the Magdalen laundries, who suffered horrendous treatment there and whose lives have been plighted by what happened to them. We know the Government had contracts for work done by those unpaid slaves. Similarly, contrary to previous statements that the Bethany Home was a private mother and baby home and had nothing to do with the State, has been proved wrong with irrefutable evidence that the State was responsible for sending young women to these institutions and causing the horrific harm that has been outlined by other Deputies. I fully support the inclusion of the victims of those organisations under the redress scheme. Together with other Deputies, I support the idea of a statutory old age pension that would include the years worked in the laundries when contributions were not submitted as required under the Act, entitlements and other benefits due to the unpaid workers in those laundries. Obviously a lump sum in lieu of those years of unpaid labour should be paid in compensation. At this stage it is horrific that only a couple of hundred women are in this situation. It will hardly break the bank. These women more than earned that money and are entitled to it.

Similarly, the points have been well made about the Bethany Home, and I do not wish to repeat them but I fully agree with them. I agree with the points made about the statutory trust fund. There must be some element of discretion in terms of how some people get compensation. I think an area that will come under this remit, which will not be closed off with the residents of Magdalene laundries and the Bethany Home is the illegal activity which took places in the 40 mother and baby homes which were closed in 1972, the largely church-run institutions where hundreds of children were illegally adopted and where birth registrations were illegally carried out. The lives of some people are blighted when they set out to seek their parents. The name of their biological mother was never entered on the birth certificate and they were given the names of their adoptive parents, as their biological parents. The State is trying to claim that this is a private matter. That is false. These mother and baby homes which were run by the religious orders, were paid a per capita sum by the State for the numbers that they catered for. The nuns supposedly gave these fallen women a roof over their head and in return these women effectively worked as slaves, in laundries, kitchens and farms of these institutions, often being required to look after their children for a number of years before the children were adopted. Many of those people have been in touch with me recently. It is a crime to falsify the registration of a birth, but there is documented proof that false registration was carried out and facilitated by adoption agencies, some of which are still accredited by the Adoption Board today.

The HSE has files of the agencies that have ceased to operate. It says it can make the files available to those who want to investigate and find their birth parents but in practice it is not happening. We were contacted last week by a gentleman who was adopted from the Bessborough Care Centre, Cork, which was closed in the late 1970s. The HSE will not give access to the files on that case. Many people have spent tens of thousands of euro trying to access what should be available from a freedom of information request. It is criminal. We are paving the way to have another layer of people, who already are abuse victims, whose needs have not been calculated in this situation.

This is an area that must be included. The Adoption Board must be proactive and the HSE also has a role to play. Ultimately, the State was culpable in colluding with the church and the role given to the church in Ireland allowed it to operate as a state within the State. It is the clearest example of why we need to have a defined separation of church and State, which must also be part of this process.

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