Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are outstanding issues regarding equal pay and bodily integrity. There was a strike today outside Leinster House over the remaining issues related to Repeal the Eighth. Domestic violence issues are costing the economy €2.5 billion a year. Instead, on this special day we find ourselves once again discussing how the State has misused and mistreated the women of Ireland. Prior to Leader's Questions, the debate concluded on the terms of reference for another inquiry into the State and its agencies presiding over the appalling treatment of a young vulnerable woman in the south east and what appears to have been collusion in the concealment of that treatment. I am glad that new politics is working and we have forced a reconsideration of the terms of reference.

In addition, we have had the revelations from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs through the commission that revealed that human remains are visible in a series of chambers that may have formed part of sewage treatment works for the home. It is not clear whether the chambers were used for sewage treatment. The commission believes that there are a significant number of remains there and forensic analysis has determined that the remains are between 35 foetal weeks and two to three years of age. Despite protestation from the Bon Secours Sisters and the establishment that this was a Famine burial site that was covered, it is not.

This is a shocking discovery according to everyone and particularly to the Taoiseach. However, those in Galway have been aware of this for a long time. It was highlighted by Catherine Corless back in 2014 in her painstaking and self-funded research. Many women went before the commission of inquiry into child abuse, which culminated in the Ryan report as far back as 2009, and told their stories about their experiences in mother and baby homes. It was brought to the attention of Martin McAleese when he concluded his report on the Magdalen laundries. None of this is shocking to the survivors. What is shocking to the survivors and to me is the carefully crafted words the Taoiseach used in the Chamber. In particular he said:

No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children. We gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was the nuns' care.

I do not doubt the Taoiseach's bona fides, but I certainly doubt his judgment in reading out in these circumstances such a sentence in a carefully crafted speech. Where is the interim report that has been with the Minister since September 2016? Will the Taoiseach confirm the site will be sealed off as any crime scene is sealed off? Will he confirm that records will be made available to those who are seeking them in order that somebody like Peter Mulryan does not need to go to the High Court to seek the records of his sister? The Taoiseach must stop the hypocrisy. Cuir deireadh leis an gcur i gcéill agus tabhair freagra dúinn. Sin an méid atá ag teastáil ag an bpointe seo.

See this speech in context