Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home operated between 1925 and 1961. It was located in Tuam, County Galway. I say to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and Deputy Canney that this is no reflection on the people of the county. I am very lucky to have my only living aunt, Ms Peggy McEnerney, living in Kinvarra, County Galway. She would not have me say a bad word about the county. The mother and baby homes were used for single mothers who were stigmatised because they were unmarried. The treatment of these women was horrendous. It was claimed that there may have been up to 800 babies interred in Tuam following the closure of the home. Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that the babies of single mothers had been treated like some kind of subspecies. In view of this, is history going to repeat itself? Will this Government prevent the survivors from viewing their files?

I understand that last week in the Dáil the Minister spoke of the necessity of getting this legislation through. He said it is necessary "to preserve information, including a critically invaluable database for future use to the maximum extent possible" under the law. I take it that what the Minster is saying is correct and that the files will be treated sensitively in order to give the survivors some dignity on the long journey of healing ahead. However, earlier today I spoke to one of the survivors who has been trying to track his mother down for 40 years. He claims he was given false information by Tusla, resulting in upsetting a family in the UK and upsetting his own family. The only way he could locate his family was by doing DNA testing, which resulted in him locating a sister he never knew he had for most of his life and who lived only ten miles away.

I consider myself to be a very lucky person. I had a father, who was born in the early 1900s, and a mother. I have brothers and sisters; 11 of us in total. I have aunts and uncles. I am now a husband and father myself. I have four sons and one grandchild. I appeal to the Minister for these victims. If I thought for one minute that I could not find out anything about my family I could not bear it. I cannot bear to see what these people have gone through, what these mothers have gone through and what their children have gone through. That lady outside the front gate today said that she was here for the people who came out of the homes, for the children who survived the homes and for those who never got out of those homes.

I appeal to the Minister not to lock things away for 30 years. These people need to find the information relating to their families while they themselves still live. Let us not have any more families go through pain or go through all the bureaucratic bull people would have to get through in order to try to get information on their past or their families. The Minister should do the right thing by ensuring that these files are not locked away and that the families can have full access to them at any time they wish.

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