Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that the Government seems to have accepted the spirit of the motion and the need to move as quickly as possible to investigate all aspects of the horrific stories, which have emerged not just recently but over the past decade and a half. The inquiry needs to extend to all cases highlighted in the past and to all cases into which full inquires have not been conducted, despite the appeals of former residents. The inquiry must include the Bethany Home and the disturbing practices that took place there, which were similar to what happened in the Tuam mother and baby home, where a large number of children were buried in unmarked graves.

The death rate in these homes is striking. When one takes into account the death certificates that have been found, the number of children who died in all these homes, including the Bethany Home, is high. At the time the mortality rate for children in the State was high because of disease and various other reasons but mortality rates in the homes were excessive and extraordinary by any standard and this must be examined. The children in these homes died at a much higher rate than those living with their families. It is a scandal that this happened and this must be fully investigated.

The Sean Ross Abbey home in County Tipperary is on the border of my constituency. The home operated under the Sacred Heart Sisters for 40 years until 1970 and it was the subject of the film "Philomena", which focused on forced adoptions from it. The home has a large burial plot, which contains numerous bodies of babies. We do not know how many are in it and it could be hundreds. Yesterday, I was contacted by a constituent who only discovered the other day that he was born in Sean Ross Abbey. He is aged 51 and he is one of the lucky ones who survived. He wants answers. He wants to know why his mother was committed to the home and whether he was the subject of an adoption or whether he was boarded out. He wants a copy of his medical records. He has many questions but there are no answers for him at the moment. We need to know what went on in homes such as Sean Ross Abbey.

Adoption is a particularly sensitive issue, given the comments of mothers who claim they were forced to give up their children for adoption. Many of the children were adopted overseas and this presents a massive legacy issue, which needs to be handled sensitively in order that separated families can find out what happened during the adoption process and in order they can be reunited.

We must also examine the use of children as guinea pigs in vaccine trials, which were not approved. It is a scandal that this happened. How many children died as a result of the trials? Who authorised and monitored them? Who benefited from them?

There has rightly been a significant focus on the religious orders who ran the homes and there is a major responsibility on the surviving members of those orders who have information to come forward. In doing so, however, we must also look at the State's role over a 50 to 60 year period.

The people who have the power, the Ministers in the Cabinet, must do everything they can to try to get answers, particularly for the survivors, many of whom are elderly. Those people and their children are entitled to answers as to what happened. Hopefully the inquiry will focus on these matters and get answers, so we will be able to shed more light on what was a very dark period in our history. We have a responsibility to those people to expose this and ensure they get redress.

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