Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like many here this evening, I was watching the inauguration of President Joe Biden for a short while. I wish him every success. In some ways, we could say we are almost seeing one of our own being sworn in. President Biden definitely has Irish blood running through his veins. Last night, he recalled his grandmother once said: "Remember, Joey Biden, the best drop of blood in you is Irish". Hopefully, therefore, we can all look forward to good relations with the United States during the four years of President Biden's tenure.

The real topic I wish to raise this evening is the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. It is a report absolutely riddled with pain and hurt, and volumes of it. I will home in on several aspects of the report. The most striking thing was the really high mortality rate. Some 15% of all children born in mother and baby homes did not survive. They died. Many of them were not even afforded a Christian burial. Some 9,000 children died in mother and baby homes, and 168 of those deaths were in my home county of Clare.

Last week, the two newspapers in Clare, The Clare Championand The Clare Echo, ran front pages with that figure of 168 deaths. Those were 168 young babies from Clare who should have grown through childhood and be adults now, probably with their own children and grandchildren. However, that was a future they were never to see and fulfil. These are the people we need to consider in bringing about a story of justice and redress.

With regard to Kilrush in my county, the report states that there were "continuous requisitions" for coffins. What does that say? Again, it harks back to that hugely high mortality rate of 168 Clare lives lost. The report also quoted inspector reports that said there were appalling living conditions. Children were sleeping in "every habitable corner". It is good and welcome that we now have the report, but there are so many unanswered questions such as how, why and what happens next.

The way the Tuam babies were buried was perverse. They were not given a Christian burial. It is a perversion that the religious organisations of our State, whose very premise is based on the birth of a baby child in Bethlehem and whose whole belief and faith system is based around that, which is a faith system I hold, would administer these mother and baby homes and not afford the most basic of Christian burials to some of these babies.

There was demonisation of women, dehumanising of children and commodifying of life and forced adoptions, which, frustratingly, for so many who testified still seems to be somewhat disputed in the report. There is nothing more perfect than the life of a baby child. On three occasions I was blessed and fortunate to sit beside my wife as she gave birth to our three children. It is disgusting and stomach churning to think that State, church and society would use horrible terms like "illegitimate" and "born out of wedlock" from the very get-go. As these children breathed their first gulps of oxygen and cried to the world, the State and the instruments of the State did not recognise their legitimacy, calling these children horrible terms such as "bastards". That is wrong and disgusting. The real measure of the State now in the year 2021 is not so much what has come out in this report but about the redress and the justice that we must fight for and deliver for the victims and survivors of these homes and for the many children who never lived to tell their tale fully. For anyone who lived in a mother and baby home and for any mother who gave birth in a mother and baby home, we all must say to them that they did nothing wrong. They have nothing to be ashamed of. They did not bring any shame on their families. The church let them down, the State let them down and society let them down.

This report is meaningless unless there is effective justice and redress. I fully believe, and I think every Member in the House believes, that children should have a right to know who their birth parents are. Every child should be entitled to an accurate birth certificate, which is the very document that verifies a person's identity and legitimacy. That term now needs to be used. Everyone is legitimate. The church and the State must pay up with redress. Many of the children born into these homes had lives that went in a certain trajectory from the moment they were born. Many of them remained disadvantaged for their whole life. They need effective redress. In that regard, church and State must pay up with no ifs, buts or "Will you pay up?". They will pay up.

On the issue of the GDPR legislation, I welcome that the Minister has a modern take on all of this. I am aware that, before entering Dáil Éireann, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was a law lecturer and he has really cast a cold eye on all of this by seeing how this information can be freed up and used in the right channels. I believe that GDPR legislation is good. It is a way of accessing information but, as I said the Minister yesterday, GDPR legislation deals with the documents relating to oneself and we need more than that in this regard. For this reason, every effort to advance tracing information legislation should be undertaken by Dáil Éireann.

This went on until 1987. I am a child of 1982, and if Google is correct, I believe the Minister is also a child of 1982. This was happening in our lifetime. It was not something that happened just in the 1920s or in black-and-white films. This was happening in our lifetime and it is very conceivable that when I was a child going to primary and secondary school, I sat in a classroom with children who had come from a mother and baby home and had lived through this whole experience. Nobody, be it society, State or church, can cast aside the fact that this all happened in living memory and is not some relic from the past. We need to deal with it in this way. It is a very current issue. It is a real stain on our State. We are about to approach 100 years of statehood. The redress and the justice we deliver for these victims will be the litmus test for how good our State really is in the year 2021.

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