Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I read the Minister’s speech as he was delivering it. I ask him to consider the Labour Party Bill, which was also published yesterday, entitled the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2021. If it is passed, it will provide adopted persons with the right to access their birth certificates. I note the Sinn Féin Bill of Deputy Funchion and that Senator Bacik has contacted her office yesterday to consider this Bill. If a Bill emerges from these Bills which we can all support that deals with this issue finally and in a timely fashion, this will provide some confidence to the many people who have been advocating on this issue for many years.

I take in good faith the Minister's statement that we will have the heads of the Bill on information and tracing by the end of March or early April. Is there a way of shortening that time, given that the Minister's predecessor had been giving consideration to this matter for a number of years and the issue has been in the system for too long already? We feel strongly that the legislation to speak to the issue of the right to access birth certificates could be implemented tomorrow if the political will was there. We ask that the timeframe be addressed again. This is an issue on which people want to see closure or progress. I accept that there is a process, but it is one that has been ongoing for a number of years and was on the Minister's predecessor's desk for a number of years as well. It is not a new issue.

We owe a debt of gratitude to many people, but I wish to mention two whose material I have read extensively. They have been instrumental in raising consciousness about these issues. I am referring to Mr. Conall Ó Fátharta, a journalist who wrote for the Irish Examiner, and Mr. Donal O'Keeffe, a documentarian, historian and commentator. Mr. O'Keeffe was responsible for putting together the list of names that appeared in the Irish Examinerlast week. I thank the Irish Examinerfor carrying the list on its front page. That mere act raised consciousness about this issue among many people for whom it otherwise would not have been brought home so starkly in these times of Covid. That front page was an important piece of work. It is now an historical document and has done much to raise awareness of the issue. It has done a great duty in bringing home to us the reality of the sheer number of young babies who died in such horrific circumstances.

Deputy McDonald was right, in that if our generation of politicians does not deal with this now, we will not be able to look our children and, hopefully, grandchildren in the eyes when they ask us what we did about mother and baby homes without casting our gazes downwards. We have to address these issues now. Based on his words to date, I believe the Minister is willing to do so. I do not say this in a condescending way, but if I may, I implore him to ensure that we do not go down the road that has been taken before with reports of this nature where we have seen evidence of internal memos written by senior people in Departments where sympathy was expressed for the issue but cost became a determining cause for inaction. We cannot be a generation of politicians that become part of the edifice of historical issues not being dealt with because cost was a factor.

I respectfully ask the Minister that, as a first step, when the interdepartmental group meets to assess the provision of a form of enhanced medical card for anyone who spent more than six months in a mother and baby institution, the timeframe should be considered because anyone who spent even an hour in such an institution should have that right. Six months is too arbitrary. If the Minister started with this gesture, it would build confidence among the many people who have been hurt and traumatised by their experiences. It would be a meaningful gesture for many. I have raised two issues - the information and tracing Bill and medical cards. If they could be dealt with immediately, it would build confidence in what will be a long process.

I acknowledge the workload lying ahead of the Minister. We will work with him as a committee. I stand as a member of the Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration. We will do everything we can to help the Minister and his colleagues in whatever process needs to be undertaken. This is not a partisan issue, but one that we all must deal with collectively.

A few minutes are left to me. I noted the Minister's reference to Ms Litster and the experiences in Tuam. I wish to acknowledge the role of Dr. James Deeny, the former Chief Medical Adviser who was active in respect of Bessborough. Between 1922 and the end of 1946, 674 children were officially certified as having died at that home. That was not the sum total of children who died at the home. One report - I am sorry, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle - stated that "the greater number" were "miserable scraps of humanity, wizened, some emaciated, and almost all had rash and sores all over their bodies, faces, hands and heads". Dr. Deeny visited and inspected the home in Bessborough. He noted that it was spotlessly clean. He wrote: "I marched up and down and around about and could not make out what was wrong; at last I took a notion and stripped all the babies and, unusually for a Chief Medical Adviser, examined them." As he recalled in his 1989 memoir, "Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhoea, carefully covered up."

Forgive me for getting upset, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but this has to be dealt with. We have to deal with it. We have to acknowledge face on that it happened and we have to find a mechanism for every woman, child and family member who had any contact with any home throughout the State. Justice will be served when they feel they have received some acknowledgement of the hurt that was caused to them. We can achieve that through redress, proper mechanisms and a revision of the executive summary, which was an insult to them - the Minister described its language as cold. The first point of departure should be the report itself. It has caused trauma and hurt again. That is not a good starting point and I ask that the executive summary be addressed.

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