Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis páirt a ghlacadh sa díospóireacht ó thaobh an Bhille seo. Is Bille thar a bheith tábhachtach é an Bille agus ceapaim gur cinneadh dearfach é agus go bhfuil céim chun cinn i gceist leis. Tá neart oibre déanta ag a lán daoine sa Roinn agus ag an Aire agus gabhaim buíochas dóibh ach cuirfidh mé in iúl go bhfuil an obair sin atá déanta acu bunaithe ar obair na gcapall atá déanta ag eagraíochtaí eile taobh amuigh den Dáil. Is dócha go bhfuil sé sin admhaithe ag an Aire. Chomh maith leis sin, don chéad uair riamh, táimid chun spotsolas a dhíriú isteach ar thaisí daonna faoi thalamh agus iad a thabhairt chun solais agus anailís fhóiréinseach a dhéanamh orthu. Leis an bpróiseas sin, táim dóchasach go mbeidh spotsolas á dhíriú isteach freisin ar an saghas sochaí a ligfeadh don rud seo a tharlú. Táimid ag caint faoi na céadta gasúr a cuireadh i mbealach atá thar a bheith míchuí. Tá sé sin admhaithe againn anois agus tá sé admhaithe sa Bhille. Mar a dúirt mé, gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire, leis an Roinn agus leis an gcoiste traspháirtí agus a chathaoireach as an méid oibre atá déanta, ach tiocfaidh mé ar ais go dtí an méid oibre atá déanta taobh amuigh agus an méid brú a cuireadh. Ní mór dúinn gan dearmad a dhéanamh air sin mar ní bheidh muid anseo ach de bharr na crógachta a thaispeáin Catherine Corless agus a lán daoine eile. Rachaidh mé siar air sin anois.

I very much welcome the Bill. It is a positive step and I say "Well done" to the Department and the Minister. It is a good Bill, and while there are difficulties with it, that is part of the process of amendments and review. This is a special day and we are, I hope, turning a corner. The Bill will give legal underpinning to excavations that will be carried out forensically, with expertise and in accordance with international standards, for the first time ever. I hope that, as we shine that spotlight, we will shine it also on the society and the narrative that allowed that to happen. We are not standing here today as a result of a proactive Department - although I am not finding issue with the Department - or because society has grown up and we realise we really should do these things. Rather, we are doing this because of Catherine Corless. It is like “in the beginning was Catherine Corless”. In this case, in the beginning was Catherine Corless in 2012. She has shown perseverance against all odds. I have read her book. What stood out for me, among many aspects, was her description of going into the county council building to carry out her research and how, in modern times, she was supervised, with the door locked. We were still locking doors in modern times and supervising anyone who dared to ask questions. She wrote an article for a local newspaper. We know all this because it has been said many times but it is important to reiterate it because without her and her persistence, we would be nowhere. She published her extraordinary and poignant article, entitled “The Home”, in the Journal of the Old Tuam Societyin 2012, detailing the poor living conditions.

I am conscious of time and I want to get through quite a lot, so Catherine might forgive me, given what she has done is all on record. Between 2011 and 2013, at her own expense, she obtained 798 death records for children who had died in Tuam but for whom there were no burial records. There were no burial records in an institution that was owned and run by the county council and operated by the sisters. It was a religious institution with no burial records. There was also help from local media, the Galway City Tribune, when an article by Denise McNamara entitled “Campaign to recognise 800 dead Tuam babies” was published on 13 February. It was a good article, but there was a casualness in the way it was presented. The real figure was 798. It is awful that we could be so casual about whether the figure was 798 or 800. Nevertheless, I pay tribute to the Galway City Tribunefor its work and also to The Irish Mail on Sunday.

After that, a commission of inquiry was announced in 2014 and set up in February 2015.

Later that year, the commission began field investigations on the site of the memorial garden. There was a little memorial garden to add - I will not say "insult" - another layer on top of what was hidden underground. The commission used a non-invasive geophysical study. Interestingly, this was followed by a series of test excavations in 2016 and 2017 to ground "truth anomalies" that had been identified by remote sensing. The truth anomalies were not just in the ground, of course. It is amazing that that term is being used.

On 3 March 2017, the commission of investigation released a press statement detailing that, in the course of the test excavations, significant quantities of juvenile human remains have been located in underground chambers that were associated with a structure potentially related to the historic treatment of sewage waste. As a result of this discovery, the commission asked the relevant State authorities to take responsibility for the appropriate treatment of the remains. Clearly, the commission asked the Government to take responsibility.

The special investigation team that was set up subsequently noted that the then Minister, Ms Katherine Zappone, took "a leading role in attempting to deal with the discovery of juvenile human remains in a sewage facility in Tuam." I am quoting the technical group's report. It continued:

The government agencies that were consulted in the process of compiling this report facilitated the [expert group] ... However, no agency, Department or organisation acknowledged a role in coordinating any future work at the Tuam site. This poses clear problems; while the [expert technical group] acknowledges the lack of precedent for the situation and the site this issue, as a priority, should be resolved as effectively and timely as possible.

Of course, that did not happen. We are now in 2022. Ms Zappone set up this team. Parallel with that, the commission of investigation, following its work on the site, published its report, which was eventually published on 15 March as an interim report. It makes many interesting comments.

Galway County Council had a legal responsibility to keep a record of burials. It is important to remember that this is the very county council that had its meetings in the mother and baby home. Members and staff "must have known something about the manner of burial", which was inappropriate. This report is dated 15 March and was published in April. I am being specific because I believe there were seven or eight interim reports, but few of them were published on time. The second-last one was not published at all. In the end, I believe it was the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, who was responsible for getting it published along with this report. Imagine the message that was being sent to Catherine Corless, the survivors and the various groups connected to Tuam, Bessborough and everywhere else.

Ms Zappone did her work and the report was published quickly, listing five options. When the Minister replies, he might say whether we are choosing the fourth option, the fifth option or a combination. The fifth option was for a full excavation.

I am only giving a bare outline of what has led us to this legislation. Along with all of these reports, we had Dr. Geoffrey Shannon's report, dated 12 April 2018, on human rights. We also had the inaugural meeting of the collaborative forum in July 2018 but whose report has never been published. That is some accountability and transparency. Only the recommendations have been published, and then only after pressure was applied. The commission of investigation's report was given to the Government on 30 October 2020. I am losing track of time; I am unsure as to whether the Minister was in office then. Significantly and unacceptably, the report was not published. The first time we heard about its publication was in a leak to a Sunday newspaper. As part of that leak, an interview with the Taoiseach commented on the contents even though no one had seen it. There was an investigation into that leak but there has been no outcome. There was then the webinar with the survivors. They did not get copies of the 3,000-page report. For anyone who is listening, I have copies of the report in my office – I thank the Minister for them – and I give them out regularly. This document in my hand is just part of that report. I will not say that I have read every word but I have read the majority of it and I keep reverting to it.

The general scheme of the Bill was finally published in December 2019. It was unacceptable. Coming from a Government that people were trying to trust, it caused outrage and upset once again. An Oireachtas committee considered the heads. Covid interfered with the timeliness of that but the committee published a good report, which I have read, with 65 recommendations. After the publication of the Bill's general scheme, six UN special rapporteurs and two chair-rapporteurs highlighted serious issues. I mention all of this to outline what has brought us to this point where we have changed the heads of the Bill into legislation that I hope puts survivors at the centre.

Along with all of that serious stuff, we have constant commentary and it is important to mention these comments. I have mentioned the help provided by newspapers. I will now mention a very unhelpful comment from Ms Terry Prone in her capacity as public relations officer, PRO, for the nuns. She was asked to comment on the Tuam discovery. She wrote:

Your letter was sent on to me by the Provincial of the Irish Bon Secours congregation with instructions that I should help you. I'm not sure how I can. Let me explain. When the "O My God – mass grave in West of Ireland" broke in an English-owned paper (the Mail) it surprised the hell out of everybody, not least the Sisters of Bon Secours in Ireland, none of whom had ever worked in Tuam and most of whom had never heard of it.

She went on to say:

If you come here, you'll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force [this is presumably the Garda] casting their eyes to heaven [interesting that they were to heaven] and saying "Yeah, a few bones were found – but this was an area where Famine victims were buried. So?

That was the comment from the Bon Secours nuns through Ms Terry Prone.

On the positive side, documentaries from RTÉ and the international media were pushing and supporting people on the ground, as well as this and previous Governments, to do something. I was only elected in 2016 and Catherine Corless started her work in 2012. That means we have gone through three Governments. I have mixed up how many taoisigh we have had in that time and I do not know how many Ministers have sat where the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, is sitting now, ostensibly trying to do his best. In light of the bare outline I have given, the Minister can see how difficult it is on the ground for people who have suffered.

I welcome the legislation and its positive elements but I have a number of concerns. The Minister has taken on some – I do not know whether it is most, so he might help me with that – of the recommendations of the cross-party committee. I welcome the inclusion of an advisory board. The Minister spoke about relatives being on it. He used the plural "relatives" in his speech but it is singular in the legislation, in that there will only be one person from each group. He might clarify this issue.

There is an obligation to provide documents, which is essential. It applies to public bodies, but will the Minister clarify whether it applies to nuns and all other relevant bodies? A large amount of documentation is with the nuns.

I will use a few seconds to say that I have the greatest of respect for nuns. Some of them have done a great job. When I talk about the nuns, I also talk about the county council, the politicians, the solicitors and the judges that were all in this system. In particular, the manager of Galway County Council took an extraordinary role. Actually, he did not – he took the role that was given to him under law, and he did it well. When someone got pregnant for the second time, the county manager decided where her fate lay and so on. The council then held its meetings. As such, I am not singling out nuns.

Neither am I agreeing with various comments from our former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, who said they did not come in the middle of the night. What happened here was far more subtle or not so subtle, where a system of coercion to back up the system was used and never analysed by the commission of investigation. Let us go back to the legislation. Will the Minister clarify who that applies to and what analysis has been done in that regard?

There are a number of escape routes that trouble me deeply in section 8(3). In determining whether there can be making of an order under section 7(1), the establishment of the office of director of authorised intervention, a number of criteria are set out. I understand some of them. Will the Minister clarify what is meant or what he envisages as coming under "public health", for example? There is also "the need to respect the views of the relatives of persons buried in the land". I understand it was a matter discussed by the committee but the term "relatives" is not defined anywhere in the legislation. That particular use of the word "relatives" is not defined.

There is also mention of the "archaeological features (if any) of the land", and there must of course be a balancing exercise in this respect, though it should not be an escape route. The most worrying term, however, is that the process shall consider "the social and economic interests of the State". This escape route is extremely worrying for me and I would really like the Minister to address that for me. I hope it will also be addressed when we deal with the amendments.

I note the committee and its Chairman welcomed the lifting of restrictions on the coroner. I can see that too. However, I am not sure how the person appointed overall and the coroner will work together. The way I read the legislation, the coroner will be brought in if the person in charge decides there are suspicious circumstances or questions relating to the causes of the circumstances of the death. Is it only at that point that the coroner comes in? I am not clear myself on this and perhaps I am misreading it. When the restrictions are lifted from the coroner, will the person appointed to oversee the scene call in the coroner if necessary? There is also the question of the appeals system and the adjudicator, as well as the independence of that adjudicator.

I will wind up by saying the documents I have in front of me comprise a slight amount of the number of documents I have read. I cannot imagine how difficult it is for affected people - those who were in mother and baby homes, albeit not industrial schools - to try to come to come to terms with just the bare outline of what I have discussed. What we need, and what the Minister brings, to a certain extent, is openness and accountability in the system. With the help of the committee and the various actions from outside actors, there has been a change.

It strikes me as ironic that the compensation built into the scheme, and there must be compensation, will perhaps in some cases exceed what survivors might get in due course under the redress scheme. It is really ironic when we think about it. This is the cost of child abuse and our failure to act. I can give an example, going back to the religious orders, which need to make contributions. There was an inability of different Governments to analyse and give figures. The original forecast for the redress scheme for those who went to industrial schools, as indicated by the Comptroller and Auditor General, was €250 million but it ended up costing €1.25 billion. I do not say this to argue that cost is an element but rather the opposite; we end up spending billions of euro because we fail to do it right initially. We failed to do it right with the redress board for those involved with Magdalen laundries and with Caranua, that terrible name meaning "new friend" when it was really the old enemy.

As I am over my time, I will finish on that. I hope the amendments to the Bill will make the process more accountable and put people at its centre. I hope it is a turning point.

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