Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will try. I want to raise the case of Majella Moynihan. I am sure all of us, listening as Majella told her devastating story, have been moved and deeply saddened by her experiences. For those of us who were children in the 1980s, I think this transported us back to that Ireland - that awful, oppressive, misogynistic Ireland. Majella told her story. She told of her background as a child, her experience of growing up in an industrial school and then, in 1983, how she landed her dream job, and the pride she felt, walking through the gates of Templemore to become a member of An Garda Síochána. By all accounts, she was an effective garda. She was described as honest, dependable and willing. Of course, she was not to have a successful career in An Garda Síochána because she was in a relationship and she became pregnant. For that transgression, she was vilified, isolated and damaged in the most fundamental ways. On 31 May 1984, Majella gave birth to her son at University Hospital Galway. She says that when she left the hospital, she did so in a trance. Heartbreakingly, she describes the situation whereby her child was taken her away from her and she was coerced into allowing the child to be put up for adoption. She describes that as the worst day of her life. Then, she was subjected to an internal Garda investigation. She was lucky she was not sacked, because of the intervention of the Archbishop, but she was brought to heel and disciplined for the transgression of being pregnant and having a child outside of wedlock. She was then brought to an internal inquiry at which the behaviour of the father of her child, also a garda, was investigated.

All of these things happened and Majella has now stepped forward to tell her story. The Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice and Equality have apologised, quite correctly, to her in recent days. She is due to meet the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, and, I understand, the Minister for Justice and Equality in the coming days. I want to ask the Taoiseach is it now time for him to apologise to Majella on behalf of the State. Since she came forward, others have followed suit in order to tell their stories. Anne Cleary, a retired garda who was based in Fitzgibbon Street station in the 1980s, has said that the top brass were very influenced by the church’s teachings.

Who was not in those times? She tells of one girl who kept her baby and another who gave up her child for adoption.

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