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

What happened behind the high walls of the mother and baby homes casts a long and very dark shadow over our country. The women and children, many of whom were placed in these institutions by the State, were abused and exploited. They were stigmatised, vilified, and considered outcasts from society. The awful abuse of single mothers, the forced separation of families and the horrors of what happened in places such as Tuam are still so very hard to comprehend. Perhaps, as a society, we will never fully understand or be reconciled with the brutal way these women are treated, or how that awful treatment impacted on their lives and walked every step of the way with them. We will perhaps never know fully or grasp the full extent of the abuse that they suffered, the horror and the pain. There are depths to the trauma perpetrated in these mother and baby homes that we can never hope to understand but we can know and we can learn. Survivors can uncover more about who they are and they expect, as a minimum, the veil of secrecy to be cast aside for good. I appreciate absolutely that this archive must be protected intact; there is no dispute on that matter. However, the wretched cry of every child who was wrenched from their mother's arms has to echo today as a cry and a demand for what is right. The evidence must be preserved and protected and those whose story it tells - the most intimate and painful details of their lives - must have access to it.

I find the Minister’s position this evening contradictory. He told us on the one hand that his Bill will not have the effect of sealing the archive for 30 years and then he went on to reiterate the position of the 2004 legislation in which he stated categorically that the records will remain sealed for a period of 30 years. Consequently, whatever the Minister’s intent, the net effect of his course of action is that these archives will be sealed for 30 years. He said that the entire process and those who came forward to tell stories and with information had a guarantee of privacy, and so they did, but nobody was guaranteed secrecy and he should not uphold that approach. The Minister said that victims, survivors and their families have what he called a legitimate expectation of access to important personal information. I put it to him that they have a legal entitlement to their personal information. I further put it to him that that entitlement is clearly and cogently set out in European law, which has primacy in these matters. He has not addressed that matter. I take particular issue with him saying that many of the records of the commission are copies of originals held by other institutions. Oh by God they are, and if the Minister only knew the hardship, the frustration and the heartache experienced not by a minority but by the vast majority of survivors as they seek those records. I assure him that if he really understood that he would not have presented legislation this evening.

It seems to me that the Minister has advanced with this legislation without proper thought and certainly without proper consultation. He told us that Ireland has come a long way from the 1920s. I must tell him that when I was brought home to my house as a baby, we passed the Bethany Home. I was not born in the 1920s. Our last Magdalen laundry closed in the 1990s, so not alone is this not ancient history, this is very real, very recent history. This is the story of people's lives and the Minister has no right, and should not have the authority of this Oireachtas, to lock those files for the next 30 years. The legislation he needs to bring to us, which we will all welcome, is legislation that ensures privacy rights for sure and absolutely proper procedures but, above all else, the right and entitlement of those survivors to the records, the storybooks of their lives.

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