Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issue is close to me because I know a number of women who were residents of the homes and who raised various issues with me. Their lives, as well as those of their families and others around them, were traumatised and they feel aggrieved that the situation has been pushed back again. They had expected and looked forward to the conclusion of the issue, not now but sooner. In the case of two women I have come to know well, their upbringing in the traumatic circumstances of the homes affected them, their relationships with their children and their relationships with others in their families. They believe the State has not provided for them and that it has instead turned its back and walked away. The situation has been allowed to continue and the commission has not achieved the results it was expected to achieve. While I understand many people have been interviewed and much work has been done, in reply to various parliamentary questions tabled by my party colleagues and others about whether everything was on stream, whether the report would be finished on time and whether the commission was working, we were assured at all times that everything was hunky-dory and that there was no problem.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day, it is postponed again for another year. Many of these people are of advanced years and failing health. It is not just about their physical health. Many of these people have had very traumatic lives of very poor mental health. Mental health issues are prevalent in many of these problems that many women involved have suffered.

I have been conscious of a number of people who were children who grew up in some of those homes over periods and have ended up out in the community. I spoke about it before. In decades gone by, many children who came from the homes were put out with families and farmers, and worked with farmers. In my area, they were known as home boys. While some of them were treated very well in some places, in many cases they were not and had very difficult lives. They grew up in an institution, had no experience of family life and no experience of how to interact in a community. In many cases, they were the butt of a joke, made fools of and were maligned in the community. My mother often talks about how, when she went and worked in England, she met them in the dance halls. They were equal there as with all Irish immigrants but it is the first place that they found equality. Many of those young men grew up and have a very bitter attitude towards the country that they came from.

I know many in my community. I remember there was an old man, when we were going to school, Eddie Whiffen, who had a big long beard, big long coat and a slight twang of an English accent. Everyone laughed and joked about poor Eddie but Eddie was one of those people who came from a home and suffered greatly throughout his life. There were many others throughout rural communities all over the country. Many of them were treated very badly. That was a reflection of the society that we lived in at that time. It was a cruel, difficult Ireland. We have an opportunity to acknowledge that, accept that significant wrongs were done and move forward.

Much of this is about the unfortunate children who did not survive in those homes and who died there, as we have seen in Tuam and many other places. While that has been exposed, most of us are aware that much more is to come with regard to all of that. It is clear that the Government has to step in and not just acknowledge what has happened but actually do something for them. The bodies of the victims in those situations need to be given proper, dignified burials. There needs to be acknowledgement of the wrong that was done to them, sometimes by religious institutions but also by the State. All of this has to happen in a way that reflects the new Ireland that we want to be and the future that we want to build. We have to leave that past behind and grow up out of it. If we are to grow up out of it, we need to make this happen very quickly.

Waiting and waiting is telling these people who are victims of it that they do not matter. I think they matter. They are equal citizens and have an equal right to a space in our society and community as everyone else does. They need to be acknowledged and the only way to acknowledge them is to lift them up. The issues that many of them faced are in their past but they still relive it. While they may never be able to get over it, the only way for us as a society to get over it is to do the right thing. Unfortunately, what we see happening here with this being pushed further out all the time and a lot of vagueness about where it will end is that many of these women come to the conclusion that they do not matter, that their lives do not matter and that the children they saw die in the homes do not matter.

There is a significant responsibility on the Government to do the right thing here. The direction it has gone so far makes many wonder whether Government is really committed to doing the right thing. The sooner we can get to a conclusion, the better. Pushing it out for another year without any sense of delivery is not the way forward. That has to be acknowledged by the Minister. Having said that, we in Sinn Féin want to support anything that can be done to drive this forward, but the right thing needs to be done and it can no longer be hidden.

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