Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Tá fhios agam go maith céard atá ag teastáil ag baint leis seo and that was the reason the commission of investigation was established. That has its independence with wide-ranging terms of reference. It has not actually reported its official findings yet, nor has the coroner declared what he considers the next step to be and the Garda has independent responsibility.

The Deputy is asking me to direct an independent commission to do certain things. The questions she asks are valid and need to be answered. I expect they will be answered. She can refer to carefully crafted sentences if she likes. However, the nuns did not take the children out of the houses of Ireland. They were sent to these mother and baby homes in the vast majority of cases by the families themselves. Such was the disgrace that was heaped upon them in parish after parish simply because young women became pregnant and gave birth to a child that they were driven out to Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, London, Glasgow and other places.

These were people who were born and reared in our own country who were sent away, not to foster homes in this country but other places abroad. Their stories will be told someday too.

I expect Deputy Connolly will allow the commission of investigation to report its official findings. That is its duty, its responsibility and why it was set up. It is two years into a three-year programme of work. I commend Catherine Corless. She is a heroine in this case who brought forward a stark truth which has lain, literally, underground for so many years and, as I said yesterday, not since the dawn of history, but in our own time.

There is a process involved. I expect Mr. Mulryan should be able to get the information he so wishes. There is a court case dealing with that and a judge will give a judgement on that basis.

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