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

I welcome the amendments from the Seanad. I suppose there were some good steps from the first process of pre-legislative scrutiny through the various Stages - Committee Stage, Report Stage and the Bill's progress through the Seanad. I still have a major issue with the mandatory information session. I do not think the Minister will be shocked or surprised to hear that. It is my motivation for voting against the Bill. However, I welcome the progress that has been made, in particular on the international element. A significant number of survivors of mother and baby institutions live abroad, in particular in America and England. It is important that they are very much included.

The first amendment relates to people being able to access who is looking for information on them. I hope that all legislation can be amended at some point and if there is a review period there might be an opportunity for us to remove the mandatory information session. It is very problematic and in one way it flies in the face of what the Bill sets out to achieve. That said, I welcome the progress that has been made, but it is somewhat bittersweet that we could not get the final step so that we could fully support the Bill.

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