Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to get the opportunity to raise this issue and speak on the redress scheme. I clearly remember the first woman who confided in me about her time in a mother and baby institution. It was about ten years ago, and I was a member of Kilkenny Borough Council at the time. This lady had come to me for advice on a different matter, but she ended up telling me her story. I still remember her sadness, partly because so few in her life knew about it. It has stayed with me to this day. I always felt very glad that she felt she could share her story with me. Since that time, I have had the privilege of meeting and speaking with so many women who were forced into mother and baby institutions and many children, now adults, who were born into an institution. Some have found their child or mother, but so many are still looking and still holding out hope, sometimes up to 50 years later, that they will be reunited.

On many occasions within this Chamber and throughout debates on this issue I have heard people refer to this period as being a dark time in our history. I have always struggled with this description, as while it certainly was a dark time – there is no disputing that – trying to confine it completely to history misses the serious intergenerational trauma still felt today by so many. While the State continues to deny justice both to the women sent to these State-run institutions and to the children born there, it remains very much part of our present.

In 2007, I was 25 when I had my first son, Emmet. I was not married at this time. If it had been 1967, 1977 or even 1987, I wonder if I would have found myself in a mother and baby institution. Would Emmet have even been taken away from me? I find this really difficult even to think about. I remember how incredibly nerve-wracking the whole labour and birth process was. I had great support and encouragement by my side. I had great medical help, in particular from the midwife. I always remember she stayed on with me when her shift ended. What exactly must this have been like for women alone, scared, in fact, terrified, who were met not only with little or no medical help but no encouragement, kindness, support or even a reassuring smile?

Tonight, as we discuss this, I am thinking of the woman I met who was raped at 15. She did not know what pregnancy was or what was happening to her body. I am thinking about the woman who had a partner. When she discovered she was pregnant, they planned to get married, but she was taken away late one evening.

She was told that she was going on a drive to visit a relative and then she was driven to Bessborough. Her son was taken from her when he was born a few months later. I am thinking about the woman who told me she tried desperately to get her baby back from the nuns. Eventually, she was told he had been adopted to a county that was far away from where she was located in the south-east. Thirty years later, when she tracked down her child, it turned out the story had been total lies. In fact, her son had spent the first eight months of his life less than a mile from her home. I am thinking about the man in his 60s who I met and who had spent decades looking for his mother. Thankfully, he did find her but he only had two meetings with her before she passed away. When he eventually received his file after she had passed away, it was filled with countless letters begging to know where her son was. I am thinking of the woman who is still looking for her daughter born 42 years ago in Bessborough, and of so many others.

Imagine, after all of that, to learn that you might be excluded from the scheme because the institution you were sent to is not included. Imagine you only spent the first three months of your life there, not the first six months. Imagine you are left with certain medical conditions as a result of your time in one of the institutions but you were only there for five months, not six months, so you do not qualify for the enhanced medical card. I know a number of women who are left incontinent due to the circumstances of their childbirth and who were left traumatised and unable to form significant relationships going forward because of their embarrassment and shame on that issue. They should not have to come and tell us such personal stories but they do. However, one of those women did not spend six months in an institution, so she will not be entitled to the enhanced medical card. Another lady spent five months and 20 days, to be exact, in an institution and nearly lost her leg due to sepsis brought on by the horrific treatment during her labour but, again, she falls outside the criteria. Imagine you were boarded out or nursed out, treated like a slave and, in many of these situations, physically and sexually abused but you do not qualify for the scheme.

There is no price that can be put on any of this but what the State can do is listen to survivors and their families, look at the OAK report commissioned by the Minister and use that as a starting point. People engaged with this process in good faith, again reliving their stories, which was not easy, and now it seems it was for nothing. Nobody should be excluded from the scheme. It should cover 100% of survivors. The religious institutions and the pharmaceutical companies also need to be held to account for their role in this. They often profited at the expense of children and women and they must also pay. Survivors and their families are tired of apologies with no action.

I understand the Minister is not the person responsible for the commission of investigation and, in fact, he inherited this from predecessors who I believe were happy to kick it down the road to his door. However, he is now in a position where he can, for the first time, on behalf of the State, ensure the right thing is done and that survivors are actually listened to and their wishes respected. He can ensure nobody is left out of this scheme. I fully believe he would have the support of each and every one of the Deputies in the Dáil to do this. This Thirty-third Dáil must finally be the one that ensures justice is done by every single woman and child who had to pass through those horrific institutions.

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