Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fortunately, that is not the case.

The Government says that mother and baby homes are excluded from redress. We have noted the exception of St. Patrick's Home on Navan Road. I query the rationale for this State excluding mother and baby homes. I go further and say there is a great need for us to uncover and put the full glare of public understanding on precisely what happened in mother and baby homes dotted across this land.

Leaving that aside, Bethany was not simply a mother and baby home. It was a children's home and a place of detention also. The Minister said last night in her rather warped contribution to this debate that the State cannot have responsibility for what happens to every child in every family when there is no responsibility for the State. That is a dubious statement in and of itself but let us be clear. We know that the State was right in the middle of the operation and oversight of the Bethany Home. The Minister's own records, the records of the State, reflect that.

There is not a reason to exclude further these survivors unless the Government is so mean-spirited and so cruel as to consider that a small group of survivors, elderly people at this stage, can be just disregarded because there are so few of them.

I thank those who took part in this debate. I note again that the Government benches were remarkably bare for the course of this debate. I appeal to my colleagues, the Deputies of this House, to do the right thing this evening. I want them to understand clearly that if they vote in favour of the Government's amendment, they set aside the truth and underwrite and underscore the big lie that the State, and by extension this Government, has no responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home in the past and for recognition and making amends in the present.

I thank those who took part in this debate. I note again that the Government benches were remarkably bare for the course of this debate. I appeal to my colleagues, the Deputies of this House, to do the right thing this evening. I want them to understand clearly that if they vote in favour of the Government's amendment, they set aside the truth and underwrite and underscore the big lie that the State, and by extension this Government, has no responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home in the past and for recognition and making amends in the present.

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