Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing with Deputy Buckley. I welcome this motion and I acknowledge and welcome the survivors and relatives in the Gallery.

The treatment of women and children in these homes, which was overseen by this State, is deeply shameful. The fact that so many children died in these homes and that their remains were disposed of in such an undignified and inhumane manner in Tuam is utterly disgraceful. The fact that so many children were taken away from their mothers, were illegally adopted, essentially trafficked to the US, Britain and elsewhere, and that those adopted children were then lied to, ignored and forgotten about by this State for decades is shocking. The State was supposed to safeguard the well-being of all our citizens. Instead, it facilitated and oversaw the ill-treatment, neglect and abuse of vulnerable women and their children.

As the Minister will be aware, there is a growing frustration among the survivor community over the failure of the Government to deal with the issue of redress. This has been compounded by the consistent delays to the final report of the commission and the insistence that redress will only be considered after the final report is published.

I again raise the case of the survivors of the Bethany Home who found themselves wrongfully excluded from the previous redress scheme. The Minister is well aware that this group of survivors is small and quite elderly. The Government must do the right thing and ensure that these survivors receive appropriate redress for the hurt they suffered. So far, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. I again call on the Government to reconsider its decision to refuse to allow this particular small group of survivors to access the redress scheme and I will continue to do so.

In terms of the adoption scandal, the confirmation of this policy, which was essentially child trafficking, highlights the need for a comprehensive and properly resourced investigation and that means all the agencies, individuals and homes involved in adoption in this State.

To remind people, the 126 cases of illegal adoption that were initially identified last year account for only one organisation involved in adoptions. There were an estimated 182 such organisations operating in this State. This is potentially only the tip of the iceberg.

Recently I was dealing with an elderly lady who was informed that she was illegally adopted. She had absolutely no idea about it. Can the Minister imagine how a grandmother must feel to be told she is adopted, to know she can never be able to ask her parents about the circumstances because they have passed on, and not to know whether she has siblings? This is incredibly upsetting and shocking to find out.

It is so wrong that there are people the length and breadth of Ireland and abroad who have no way of knowing their history and identity. They do not know their medical history. We cannot move on from this issue until we deal with its effects in a comprehensive and open way because it is not in the past. For the woman I just referenced, this is brand new information. It is in the here and now. It is in the here and now for those people who do not know what happened to their loved ones.

In recent times, we have seen relatives lodge missing person cases with the Garda because, despite decades of questions, they still do not know the fate of their loved ones. To those people, this is not in the past. It is in the here and now.

We need to see justice. We need to get to the truth. We need to see accountability. Too many have gone to their graves without justice or redress and the Government must show that it is willing to do all it can to right the wrongs of previous Governments.

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