Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after “scope and jurisdiction”: “— issue an enhanced medical card to all survivors who presented to ‘Mother and Baby Homes’ for any length of time, including while pregnant or on a post-natal basis.”

I support the motion. We welcome the motion and the fact that the Government is not opposing it, nor the proposed amendments, I assume, and the Labour Party proposal to extend access to the medical card to applicants. I will speak on that momentarily, but I welcome the fact that the Government is not opposing it. The issue of the status of the motion then arises. The motion seeks to extend the life of the commission. If the Government is not opposing it, does it follow that the life of the commission will be extended? I do not believe that is the case because the Minister's remarks thus far suggest otherwise.

I wish to speak on the issue of data protection because there are some elements of this that are unclear in my mind. On 11 February, the Minister wrote to the clerk of the Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration. I am a member of that committee. The Minister quoted from the commission's final report with regard to the conduct of the confidential committee. He said that witnesses were asked for permission to record their evidence on the clear understanding that the recordings would be used only as an aide-memoire, and that all such recordings were destroyed after the report was added to the confidential committee electronic repository of information. If we fast forward to today, we now know that the information is available. It has been retrieved, and that is a fact.

As I understand it, the Minister will become the data controller for that information. However, there is something I cannot reconcile in my mind. If it was the understanding of the confidential committee testimony takers, evidence takers or whatever expression one wishes to use and of the commission that the evidence would be destroyed, if the Minister is co-ordinating with the DPC and if the Murphy commission is saying that it is handing over to the Minister data which it has already processed and if that information was used for a specific purpose - I use the expression "specific purpose" because it has a legal meaning for the purposes of the commission's work - what is the status of that data if the Minister becomes the controller of the data and if the DPC reports that it was used once for a specific purpose and that it was understood that it would be destroyed? Now the Minister will become the controller of that data and it can be used again for subject access requests. That is the question.

I apologise if I do not fully understand the process, but if the DPC decides that it was already used for a specific purpose, does it then follow that it must be destroyed under the terms of reference of the commission as already articulated by the Minister to the committee?

That is the question on our minds. This issue would not have arisen if people felt their narratives, stories and histories were adequately and properly reflected in the report. So great was the damage done by inaccurately reflecting the trauma of people that we have now reached the point where this House is calling for an extension to the commission's remit to deal with the matter. Someone somewhere made a hames of this and the buck now stops with the Minister. Short of the commission being reconstituted, the responsibility on him is to create a process that will give justice to and correct the narrative of those who feel rightly aggrieved by the fact that their stories were not adequately reflected in the final report. A great injury has been done to them.

The Minister stated:

The commission states that consent was given by 549 of the 550 witnesses to the use of an audio device and the subsequent deletion of the recordings. For clarity, the final witness, who objected to their testimony being recorded, was not recorded.

I am fascinated by that statement. Does it not make liars of the many people who feel they were never told that all of this was being recorded? We need to delve into that further because the question of consent has become a major issue. There are people who in their minds rightly feel they did not give such a consent. How do we reconcile that and why was it not reflected in the Minister's speech?

As I said at the recent committee hearings, and will continue to say, in the absence of the reconstitution of the commission, a mechanism must be found to ensure the narrative is corrected so that people can get some restitution of justice for their time and the pain they went through when they were telling their stories. If the Minister does not do that, I respectfully say that any other legislation or issue related to redress will be tainted because how will any survivor be able to trust or buy into any process until the matter of narrative has been adequately addressed? I ask the Minister to take that on board. If he does so and deals with the matter full on, he will go a long way towards repairing the damage that was done by the use of the cold language, to use his expression, that is in this report.

The Minister must deal with the issue of medical cards. The inclusion of a criterion that people must have spent six months in a home is cruel. I am sure Ministers will look at this again. Professor Louise Kenny, an eminent person, produced a report based on her examination of the death certificates of all 816 babies who died in the Bessborough mother and baby home. Extrapolating from the evidence adduced from these death certificates, it is possible to draw up a list of conditions - gynaecological-related issues - affecting those who gave birth and are still alive. There is enough evidence for medical cards to be issued forthwith.

The criteria should be that if one went in at 35 weeks, 36 weeks or whatever, that is the starting period. If one spent any period in the-----

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