Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this emotive issue. We have been listening all evening to Deputies' contributions. This is an emotional debate. It should be non-political and an issue on which we should all work together. I come from just outside Tuam and I went to school in the town. I know many of the people who live near the Tuam mother and baby home. We have a lot of media attention on Tuam but it is not about Tuam; it is about what happened in a particular institution. Many people who lived in that home suffered greatly. This debate tonight and tomorrow is the time for us to start to do something to put things right.

For these people, it has been a long road and a tough and arduous life. Examples of that have been given here all evening. People were treated terribly by the State. They are the survivors and we have to do right by them. The commission of investigation was set up to carry out an investigation and present a report to this House. The purpose of the Bill is to respond to a number of serious legal and practical issues raised by the commission in relation to finalising its records.

In the five years since I have been in the Dáil, I have never had so many people contact me about an issue. They are exercised about various aspects of this legislation. Three glaring issues come up all the time. The first is the speed of the process by which this Bill is being pushed through these Houses without legal scrutiny. We must bear in mind that the commission has said there are serious legal issues with the records and how they are to be stored. This serious concern has left us without any legal scrutiny to enable Oireachtas Members to make decisions based on what we know to be right or wrong, allowing us to act accordingly. The lack of legal scrutiny is a glaring and serious omission in the legislation.

The second issue that has been brought to my attention is the fact that Tusla is being entrusted with these records. A large number of people have told me that to give the guardianship of these records to Tusla would be wrong. Most of the adoptees, birth parents and survivors do not have confidence in Tusla.

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They do not believe Tusla will give them access to their records when they need it, based on their past experiences. This is a serious issue, and if we are to restore faith among the adoptees, birth parents and survivors, we need to listen to them. There is an alternative to this measure, which is to lodge the database with the Adoption Authority of Ireland. This is the preferred way of many of these survivors.

The third issue which has been raised this evening is the sealing of the documents for 30 years. This is perceived, rightly or wrongly, that this is a way of burying all this information for 30 years. It has not been fully explained to the survivors, the adoptees or the people who were affected by all this.

This legislation is very important. It is so important that I believe the first mistake we are making is to push it through in the next two days. We need to take stock of what we are doing, for the right reasons, in order that, first, we achieve political consensus and, second, we do the right thing such that nobody in a year's time says we should have thought of this or thought of that. This is too serious. The question is this: what can we do about it? My colleague, Deputy Denis Naughten, has suggested, and tabled an amendment to this effect, that we should put a stay on this for one month to allow the legal scrutiny to be carried out and allow us, as Oireachtas Members right across the House, a chance to go through all this and explain it to the people who matter.

I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, having worked with her in our constituency. I understand that the Minister and the Minister of State want to do the right thing. Everybody does. It is so obvious, however, that many people do not know whether we are doing the right thing because we are doing it too quickly. This is not legislation to fill a gap or emergency legislation relating to Covid-19, whereby there could be anomalies or consequences. This is legislation that would have a profound effect, if it is not got right, on many people who have had such a miserable existence since perhaps the day they were born. We have to think about what this legislation is about, who it will affect and how we might get it right.

I repeat that we need time. We need to make sure we use the next month to do things right. This is above politics and there are no winners here, but we still need to do it right. I therefore urge the Minister and the Minister of State to consider everything that has been said in the House. It is genuine. We need to reach consensus rather than pushing this through, forcing it through, which would be wrong.

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