Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support this Bill. I should point out that this is the third Bill. I and my colleague, Deputy Pringle, have one at lunchtime today. That is four Bills now. It shows the measure of pressure on all of us to do the right thing.

Page 46 of the report that was published yesterday, A Shadow Cast Long, states, "A great wrong has been done to those robbed of their right to identity and family, as the Taoiseach acknowledged..." Indeed, I will come back to Dr. Conor O'Mahony. As far back as 5 November 2015, presenting to the then Joint Committee on Health and Children, at that stage in relation to the pre-legislative scrutiny, Dr. O'Mahony stated:

the right to access a birth certificate is a minimum core of the right to identity. In order to comply with our international human rights law obligations, this should be an automatic entitlement of every adoptee, with no exceptions or qualifications.

I could go back to 1984, when there was a committee on adoption making recommendations for the future. At that point, in 1984, the majority recommended, from the future onwards, every adopted person should be entitled to his or her basic information. I could go back anywhere.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the Irish Examiner, and particularly Conall Ó Fátharta. We are here today as a result of pressure from people on the ground who are forcing us as Deputies. These are ordinary people struggling to get on with their lives and trying to come to terms with what is necessary. Again, we are being led, and led by some of the very good media which take the trouble, and I come back to a comment this morning when the Minister was being interviewed by the journalist in relation to the report and the time it took. On Wednesday, 30 May 2018, Mr. Ó Fátharta gave a detailed account in the newspaper in relation to the delays. Things jump out at me, including, of course, St. Patrick's Guild and the knowledgebase.

I feel sorry for the Minister. Just like Deputy Tóibín, I believe that there is a difficult situation for the Minister in his Department. When we talk about protecting mothers, we are not protecting mothers at all; we are protecting a system. We know that from what we saw on RTÉ last week. We know that from the TG4 programme. This is all about protecting the system. I have said to the Minister repeatedly that I and my colleagues will work with the Minister and support him, if he shows leadership.

The Minister is bringing in a Bill. We need comprehensive legislation but in the meantime, we need the Bill that Sinn Féin is bringing in here today, the one that we are bringing in at lunchtime and the one that Labour is bringing forward. I do not want all of these Bills. We want to do the right thing and in the meantime, we need to do something urgently.

Going back to Conall Ó Fátharta, the Adoption Association of Ireland knew at that point and was very familiar with problems and issues that had arisen. So was Tusla. There is a quote here in relation to Francis Fitzgerald MEP. Mr. Ó Fátharta writes:

It seems the revelations made little or no impact at the time [this is going back to 2013, 2014, 2015]. Just five months after the meeting, then children's minister Frances Fitzgerald told the Dáil she "had no plans to initiate an audit of all [adoption] files".

Then there is a quote from the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charlie Flanagan.

I will not waste my time in relation to different parties. The point I am making is there was collusion - it might be a strong word but I am using that word - to leave the status quoas it was, not change it and not ask any difficult questions.

That is what has come out of every single report, the latest of which was from the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters. It was insulting in the way it stated it was going against the prevailing narrative when it was in fact reinforcing the prevailing narrative, namely, that mothers themselves did this and just walked in without analysing the situation in which the mothers found themselves. I found that particularly upsetting.

As to the report that was published yesterday, can the Minister give the House a clear answer as to why that report, which was completed in May 2019, was only published yesterday? I and other colleagues have repeatedly sought its publication. Why was it not published and why has it taken up to now to get it into my hands? I have read as much as I can, have read the full introduction and am making my way through the Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland part. The narrative is already being rewritten. This morning, when the Minister was asked a question, the answer was framed by how this report has taken three years and how the Government is only giving Professor O’Mahony six months.

This report did not take three years to complete; it took one year. The delay was in its publication. This point must be answered and it should have been pointed out to the journalists this morning that this did not take three years. This is an excellent report. It is well written, well set out, the conclusions are clear and the recommendations are clear. Regardless of whether one agrees with them, this report is an example of how a report should have been done by the commission of investigation. It is excellent and sets out the facts. The narrative is now being written, however, that there is no evidence of falsely-registered adoptions. That is utterly false. I do not have time to go into all of the detail but repeatedly, on pages 40, 45 and 51 to 53, inclusive, concerns are highlighted by Ms Marion Reynolds as to further investigation on the serious concerns raised on all of those pages. When Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland state there is no evidence, that is a narrative that is utterly false. What they should be doing is reading what is here and then asking where they should be going with this information. At the very least, Ms Reynolds has said that we need further investigation and inquiry. At the very least, I ask the Minister for a debate on this report in the Dáil. Let us not have an hour or two debate but let us put this down on the agenda in the spirit of openness and accountability.

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