Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the full, shocking story about the home in Tuam slowly emerges, the horrors of what happened in mother and baby homes, county homes, Magdalen laundries and other institutions, including the Bethany and Westbank homes, are beyond comprehension. Sinn Féin believes we need to extend investigations beyond the current commission, which is why it was necessary to draft this Private Members' motion.

The establishment of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes under Judge Yvonne Murphy can be considered in many respects as inadequate, given that it excludes many who suffered under the system but were not in one of the prescribed mother and baby homes. Many survivors' groups also have concerns about its lack of transparency.

Our proposal on establishing a truth commission aims to establish the truth of what practices took place in these homes, identifying the institutions responsible for the systematic mistreatment of women and children, and the system as a whole. Our proposal would give survivors and victims the right to access files held in their names and provide them with a voice to express their feelings and experiences.

There have been many failures over the years in how the State has dealt with the legacy of abdicating its responsibility for the welfare of mothers and babies to religious organisations. There was a lack of overview and regulation and a failure to address the concerns raised down the years about what was happening in the homes. Even when it became more than apparent that serious abuses had occurred, the State stood frozen, silently wringing its hands and muttering platitudes while still doffing its cap to the religious institutions which successfully evaded answering or taking responsibility for the actions of their members who carried out these abuses.

That included the religious hierarchy who refused to financially compensate their victims unless it was dragged out of them and then in some cases not at all. The atmosphere and climate in the institutions was tolerated due to this State's failure. Let us remember who was in the institutions. It was young women and children, young girls who, as Austin Clarke in his 1963 poem said, were left to:

Cook, sew, wash, dig, milk cows, clean stables

And, twice a day, giving their babes the teat.

To date, the State has failed to initiate a meaningful process that would help obtain the truth for survivors. Neither has it provided a suitable forum that would allow the full story of the institutions and the system that underpinned them to be made public. Considering the long line of failure in regard to the institutions we are introducing this Private Members' motion calling for a truth commission to be established to allow the State to break the cycle of failure and start the process of a truthful discourse of a shameful past.

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