Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

One minute cannot do justice to this issue or to those who have suffered as a result of Government decisions and the behaviour of institutions. The Minister is persisting with a cold, calculated scheme that is based on reducing costs. He is excluding all of those who were boarded out. He is excluding the thousands who spent less than six months in an institution. He is ignoring scientific evidence, the OAK consultation and the UN's concerns about the systematic racism experienced by those who are not white and who spent longer in institutions and suffered more. He is ignoring what the Ombudsman told us in 2017, namely, to learn from the debacle that was the Magdalen redress scheme. Ignoring that is an opportunity lost. Given that there will be a waiver system under this Bill, the Minister is failing to learn from the redress scheme that he referenced, which also had a waiver system. On every level, there is an utter failure to learn. What is horrible and unacceptable about all of this is that the Minister is persisting with a language of equality and justice that bears no connection to the scheme that he is proposing.

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