Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While I welcome that the Taoiseach talked about it being in the next few weeks, I have heard that since January so I ask him to forgive my reluctance to believe that. On the scheme, we have had ample time to learn from previous schemes. In the redress institutional scheme we created an offence such that if somebody disclosed what they got, they committed a criminal offence. Then we set up the Magdalen scheme and the Ombudsman told us there was maladministration. Then we set up Caranua, which was an insult to the Irish language because we talked about a new friend when it was the old enemy in disguise. We go on perpetuating the abuse, delay and obfuscation. I want an exact date for when the redress scheme will be published. I want the Taoiseach to answer me about Tuam and the archaeologists. The specialist forensic archaeologists protected the site for just six months and four years later, that site is not protected. We know from the sterling work of Catherine Corless that there are 796 death certificates but we do not know if that number of children and babies are buried there. We do not just need to excavate the site to rebury them, which is extremely important; we also need to excavate to examine. It is time we grew up in this country and analysed and examined what happened so that we can look and learn from it.

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