Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

How is it that this new volume of documents has suddenly come to light four years into the inquiry and has now been submitted by the Department of Health? Has the Taoiseach asked why that would be? Everybody was asked to provide every document from the beginning. This is not the first inquiry where this tardiness, to put it at its kindest, has come to light. I ask the Taoiseach not to wait but to formally apologise, on behalf of the State and all of us, to those who suffered in those mother and baby homes. He should do it this week. The Government should provide redress now of the kind the Taoiseach has said is being examined before it is too late for elderly people. I met some of the affected people at that art exhibition and it would move a person to tears to listen to their anguish and the desperate frustration arising from this issue going on and on. Are other graves being examined or is Tuam one awful and unique situation?

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