Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

When I read the Government amendment to the motion, I felt that the Minister had been sat on by her Cabinet colleagues who have about three pages of printed legalese that essentially continues to deny people the right to their information. Regarding the scandal of the illegal birth registrations, I think the Minister acknowledged that the number of cases in the Department's records had increased from more than 120 to more than 140. She said previously that over 700 cases in St. Patrick's Guild alone are of concern. St. Patrick's Guild is only one organisation.

I find the Government amendment to be insulting to many people, although I am sure that is not her intention. She welcomes the Government's compassion for the dignity of the deceased. Self-praise is no praise. It is the job of the Government and all Governments to keep addressing this until we give some of the succour people need at this point. As is pointed out in the amendment several times, the people affected are very elderly. Most of the birth parents are dead because, as we know, adoption as a practice decreased significantly before dying out during the late 1970s and 1980s. The Government refers to being open and transparent regarding the discovery of illegal birth registrations.

It is local and European election time at the moment and, like everybody else here, I meet people all the time while canvassing. Many approach me to talk about the stories in their families. They want to share them, probably with somebody who has been adopted. People have been left stupefied by the lack of emotional intelligence in the Government's response to this issue.

I put forward a very simple, short and confined Private Members' Bill to allow people whose births were illegally registered to go to the District or Circuit Family Court and have their birth registration properly addressed as they wish. Some people will want their adoption birth certificate verified and regulated, while others may choose a different path. It is within the Government's powers to that immediately but, instead, it is pushing everything out beyond 2020. The Minister must not come in here and say she cannot offer us some solutions. In one part of the amendment, she seems to have moved to a redress scheme. She needs to address Bethany Home. I can remember being in a minority of one in a previous Government arguing about Bethany Home and what people in the home suffered. Despite this, addressing this issue has been postponed, which is wrong.

The Minister was in my place when I addressed the Seanad, as Minister, on the issue of allowing solemnisation of marriages in places like hotels, which had not been allowed up to then. I could have listened to all the conservative advice I received indicating that having a civil marriage celebrated by a humanist could not be done and the sky would fall in. The Minister is being told that the sky will fall in if she addresses the wrongs she acknowledges have happened. I also received advice that transgender people could not have a birth certificate showing their acquired or preferred gender. The Minister, when she was a Senator, was a great advocate on that subject. Can she recover that feeling and sense of advocacy for those who want to sort this out? The commission is doing great work. It is discovering a lot of things. For example, there have been requests for inquests. I do not think we have heard what the Minister has to say on that but she could recognise that an inquest would be appropriate because it would recognise the dignity of the person with regard to burials in different locations.

The Minister and her colleagues must give more thought to how they acknowledge dignity and respect because that is at the heart of what was not there. That is why children who were adopted or who lived in homes were very often the subject of an innate discrimination. They were considered to be lesser people because of the circumstances of their birth. I think that, broadly, Irish society has moved way beyond that and it is time the Government moved way beyond it too by addressing a legacy that was deeply conservative. The Minister should read the debates on adoption in Ireland in this very House and the Seanad going back to the period between the 1930s to the 1950s. Many people did not want adoption because they felt it would allow strangers to come and take family property that did not belong them or take farms to which they had no legal right. The country has continuously learned and moved on. Writers, musicians and artists have been able to address it down the years. It is 20 years since the late Mary Raftery and others in RTÉ produced "States of Fear". What seems to be wrong with this Government is fear because in some ways, it has inherited and taken on itself the fear that this involved. What was it about? It was about fear of women who acted outside the convention of relationships at the time. It was about fear of sex because these women exercised their sexuality in ways that were outside the conventions of their time. It was fear around property rights and that, as a consequence of the women's sexuality and women loving people outside marriage or having affairs outside marriage, property would be undermined. The Minister has written a great deal of analysis from time to time. Can we recognise some of it?

The 75-year ban on the release of materials happened in a particular context but is now wrong and the Minister should move on it. The issue is not addressed in the amendment. It should have been addressed by the Government and an acknowledgement made. I ask the Government to please start addressing the issues of the long-term campaigners while they are still alive.

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