Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this important motion. I warmly commend Deputy Clare Daly and her staff on bringing it forward. The motion, which I have co-signed, notes the ill-treatment of women and babies in religious and State-run institutions, the forced separation of single mothers and their babies from 1922 to 1998, as well as the falsification of birth certificates and the subsequent mistreatment of survivors by the State. The motion further notes the dark stain this abuse has left on our nation and the refusal of the State to give the survivors justice to the present day, despite irrefutable and conclusive evidence being submitted by survivors and survivor groups.

Our motion calls on the Government to introduce without delay a redress scheme for the survivors of the mother and baby institutions to provide some comfort for this ageing community. It also calls on the Government to set up a commission of inquiry on the serious allegations which have emerged in recent times regarding the widespread and systematic falsification of birth certificates. Last May, the country was shocked again when it was confirmed that the St. Patrick’s Guild adoption agency illegally listed adoptive parents as birth parents between 1946 and 1969 in 126 cases. The Irish Examinerrevealed evidence of these illegal registrations in 2010, which led to the Adoption Authority of Ireland completing an audit and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs was notified in 2011. The review being undertaken by Ms Marion Reynolds into this illegal practice was due in October 2018 but has since been extended several times. The report was then due to the Minister before Easter. The second interim report was published at the end of January 2019 and completed at the end of November 2018. Has the Minister received the final report?

The review covers the period from 1953 to 1996, with the weighting of samples split between 1953 to 1976 and 1977 to 1996. Of the 30,000 records held by the Adoption Authority of Ireland, it identified 4,351 as relevant to the review. Just 459 of these were chosen as the sample. Tusla identified 70,000 and 1,082 of these were sampled. This means that out of a possible 100,000 records, just 1,541 were being reviewed. The actual examination of these records, according to the second interim report, was to begin at the start of December 2018 and should have been completed by the end of March 2019, allowing Ms Reynolds to submit her final report to the Minister before Easter.

This time last month, the Minister published the recommendations of the collaborative forum for former residents of mother and baby homes and related institutions. Those recommendations include that a health and well-being supports package be developed, that the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill be amended and that a memorialisation programme be put in place. Of course, we cannot see the full list of recommendations until after the commission of investigation completes its work. I welcome the ideas put forward for memorials, such as providing financial support to the survivor-led groups for commemoration events each year and the development of a national memorial. We must never forget what the State, one of two sectarian types of state established on this island in 1922 unfortunately, and the church did to women and children in the institutions where they were held.

The full commission is not due to report until February 2020. The fifth interim report was published in mid-April. It makes for grim reading and again brings to the forefront the questions that have to be asked of the religious institutions involved, the politicians who were in power at the time and the public representatives who were elected officials at the time in relevant local authorities. The findings in this report show the main issues around burials in Bessborough and Tuam. The report states:

More than 900 children died in Bessborough or in hospital after being transferred from Bessborough. Despite very extensive inquiries and searches, the commission has been able to establish the burial place of only 64 children.

The report also indicates that on several occasions the affidavits provided by some of the congregations involved were "in many respects, speculative, inaccurate and misleading" and how "The commission finds it very difficult to understand that no member of the congregation was able to say where the children who died in Bessborough are buried."

Bessborough Home, which was open from 1922 to 1998, transferred its records to the HSE in 2011. Tusla received the files in 2013. However, the records do not contain information about burials. More than 900 babies and children died in the home or in the Sacred Heart Maternity Hospital. The commission has also confirmed that informal adoptions were arranged from Bessborough through the Catholic Womens Aid Society, CWAS. The latter stated that its "records do not record where children who died in its care were buried." The commission was able to establish that 1,343 babies and children died in the period between 1922 and 1998, 771 in Bessborough, 552 at St. Finbarr’s Hospital Cork and 20 elsewhere, but has only been able to confirm where 64 of those children are buried. Up to 92% of the those children were born to public patients.

There was much media coverage of the burial practices uncovered in Tuam and people were understandably horrified and upset. I will not repeat the findings here but I encourage anyone with information to contact the commission before its final report. Section 8.14 of the report outlined Galway County Council records and the lack of minutes from 1937. The children’s home in Tuam was owned by the local authority. There is evidence that "awareness of the possible existence of a burial ground in the grounds of the Tuam children’s home dates from the 1970s". It beggars belief that proper investigations were not undertaken at that stage. This was a time when some of these institutions were still in operation. The Sisters of Bon Secours continued to live and work in Tuam until 2001. They must have been aware of the building works that were carried out on the children’s home site in the 1970s. The commission considered that there must be people in Tuam and the surrounding area who know more about the burial arrangements but who did not come forward with the information.

The matter of the illegal registrations of adoptions as births requires examination by a full commission of inquiry. It is unacceptable that babies were allegedly taken from their mothers in such circumstances and that the truth may never have been known to the people involved. We can all agree that what went on in these mother and baby institutions, following this report and the commission, is a dark stain on our history. Those who suffered should be properly given justice and peace. Accordingly, I will be supporting this motion.

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