Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It will be no surprise to the Minister that her response to our motion has undoubtedly added to the pain and trauma of the survivors of these institutions. Her response is completely and utterly unacceptable to this side of the House. It can be summed up as follows. It is asserted first that this is an incredibly complicated process which needs a great deal of time to work out and second that the Government is great and is dealing with it. We hear a bit of backslapping going on about how the Minister is demonstrating great leadership in dealing with this issue and in how she has responded thoroughly and decisively to the issue of illegal adoptions and so on. That tells me two things. It tells me the Department may be trying to silence the Minister or provide her with platitudes whereas it is in fact a cover for inactivity. We would not have moved this motion if everything was going well. We have moved the motion on behalf of people who survived this. They know how complicated their lives are and they know what the solution is. In her speech, the Minister said the second interim report dealt with some of the issues raised by Deputies on this side of the House in their motion. That is precisely why we moved it. That report issued almost three years ago. It is not just us calling for redress. The second interim report to which the Minister says she wishes to listen already says she should be doing this. The Government turns around and rehashes the collaborative forum's demand for a health and wellbeing programme, a proper system of memorialisation and so on as if it is something wonderful that it has thought to look into. For these people, the Government has been looking into it for years. There is no impediment whatsoever to putting a redress scheme in place now. In fact, the Government's failure to deal with it is a retraumatisation of the people involved.

In her response, the Minister said that since work had commenced, there had been calls for redress. She said some believed they were unfairly excluded from the schemes and do not see it as necessary that the current commission completes its work. The commission itself believes those people were unfairly excluded and has already said there is an incredibly strong case for the inclusion of Bethany Home, for example. As such, the commission has completed that part of its work and said Bethany Home should have been included and, further, that redress should be provided. The purpose of our motion is not to get another rehash of how complicated the whole thing is. It is to get action on that area. For the Government to hide behind previous financial redress schemes being complex and costly to administer and difficult for applicants is incredibly disrespectful for those involved. It suggests it is just about money, that they would not understand it anyway and that it would make it hard for them. It is the same paternalistic approach and looking down on people that was adopted in respect of these people and their mothers in the institutions themselves. It is gut wrenching to listen to it. In the remaining few days before we vote on this, I ask the Government to withdraw from that stance. I ask Fianna Fáil not to support the Government's amendment to our motion.

The other key part that is missing here is the issue we dealt with in the opening remarks on illegal adoptions. It is a simple reality that the experience of tens of thousands of our citizens who were illegally adopted is not being investigated properly in any forum as we stand here. The sampling exercise involves only 1.5% of the 100,000 records held by the Adoption Authority. It does not even scratch the surface. What we need to see and what we have demanded for years is a full audit of all adoption files. We need a package of basic supports for the remaining survivors which could be rolled out with ease. It is not rocket science and it is not complex or costly. We need the broader issues of the illegally adopted to be included in the commission of investigation because they are not going to go away. It may be the case that many of these survivors have, tragically, lost their lives since the commission was established, but to delay any further makes that situation even worse. I cannot understand the lack of feeling in the contributions from the Government benches. We often say here that no one has a monopoly on compassion. We all know that and I have always been one to accept it. What we have seen today, however, is a demonstrable lack of compassion which those who survived these institutions will find not at all helpful. I appeal to every grouping in the House to ensure that our motion is carried and that collectively, we bring pressure to bear. After listening to the arguments tonight, however, it appears that those involved will have to take the road to the United Nations, to litigation and to seeking answers outside the State, which is a terrible indictment of the Government.

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