Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges:

— that all survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, related institutions, unlawful or forced adoptions, and abuse in boarding out and adoptive placements deserve immediate and fair redress;

— the Report of the findings of the Consultation with Survivors of Mother and Baby Homes and County Homes, also known as the OAK Report, to which nearly 550 survivors contributed via written submissions or calls;

— the findings of the Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection 2021 on the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes;

— the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur's call, in November 2021, for compensation commensurate with the gravity of the offences, including the removal of any waiver which would prevent survivors seeking further recompense and legal accountability in court;

— the UN Human Rights Committee's call, in July 2022, for full and effective remedy to all survivors, removing all barriers to access, including short timeframes to apply to the redress schemes;

— the UN human rights experts' call, in September 2022, for redress for victims of racial discrimination and systemic racism in Irish childcare institutions;

— the recommendations contained in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Report on pre-legislative scrutiny of the General Scheme of a Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022;

— the High Court declaration, from December 2021, that the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes wrongly denied eight survivors their statutory right to comment on many draft findings;

— that religious orders and church bodies involved in Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, and related institutions should contribute to the cost of the redress scheme; and

— that pharmaceutical companies who conducted trials with women and children in Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, and related institutions should contribute to the cost of the redress scheme;

recognises:

— the grave and systematic human rights violations which were perpetrated in Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, and related institutions, including suspicious and uninvestigated deaths, forced disappearances, torture or other prohibited ill-treatment, including on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity and class, forced labour and servitude, arbitrary detention, illegal adoptions, forced family separation, non-consensual medical trials, and arbitrary interference with family life, private life and freedom of expression;

— that the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes recommendations concerning redress are among findings which do not accurately reflect the survivors' evidence; and

— that there is a deep level of disappointment, distrust and anger among survivors at their treatment by the Government; and

calls on the Government to:

— ensure all survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, County Homes, related institutions, unlawful or forced adoption, and abuse in boarding out and adoptive placements receive redress;

— use the findings of the OAK Report as a basis for the redress scheme;

— remove the six-month time-based criteria to access the scheme;

—- revise the proposed payment rates to reflect the human rights abuses and trauma experienced by survivors, including all forms of forced labour;

— remove the legal waiver against further legal recourse against the State and non-State bodies;

— immediately appoint an independent expert to engage with survivors and their advocates/representatives to develop a survivor-centred and human rights-based redress scheme;

— appoint a human rights expert to examine testimony given to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes;

— require religious orders and pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the cost of the redress scheme; and

— provide immediate interim payments to survivors while the redress scheme is being developed.

In mother and baby homes, there have been thousands of unexplained infant deaths, missing children, forced labour, the ripping apart of families, immoral medical trials, mass unmarked graves, young women, many of them children themselves, incarcerated because they were pregnant - sometimes non-consensually, their being victims of rape and incest - and the throwing of children and women into situations of abuse. So many imaginable horrors were perpetrated against some of the most vulnerable in our society. If British forces had committed these atrocities, there would be unending calls for justice. If we learned about these acts of evil happening in another country, we would rightly condemn the regimes responsible. However, because it happened here and was Government policy, perpetuated by the church, and because it is the result of our cruel humanity, there has been nothing.

For decades, survivors were denied even the acknowledgement of what happened to them. When we look at the entirety of the crimes, abuses and human rights violations, it is almost unimaginable in its scale, brutality and immorality. It was an intentional system designed to contain and punish single mothers. It penalised and abused them for being pregnant and for being women, Travellers, disabled or persons of colour. This was State policy and church strategy. Each Government between the 1930s and 1990s had a part to play in it and history is clear on what happened to the few people who tried to stand up for the rights of women and children.

Control, fear and silence were all central to this system. Sparse records were kept of infant deaths, illegal adoptions and incarcerations because the people responsible knew what was being done was wrong. Religious leaders, State officials and Ministers collaborated to hide and deny the truth for decades. These cover-ups became codified in law and practice. At all stages, these crimes and human rights abuses were intentional and the denial of justice and refusal of access to information or recognition were part of the same system protecting itself. Thousands of unnatural deaths are still not being investigated. Whole groups of survivors have been denied the dignity even of a meaningful apology, not to mention any form of redress. Information on illegal adoptions is still being covered up.

On paper, the Government looks like it is taking a different approach from that of its predecessors. It has introduced the Birth Information and Tracing Act and the Institutional Burials Act. From its press releases, it looks good. However, once we dig only a little deeper, it is clear it is just as committed to putting barriers in the way of justice and accountability and abetting those responsible. The Government and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, have ignored the pleas of survivors again and again. The glaring errors and misuse of testimony in the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes are wilfully ignored and even defended. The Institutional Burials Act is designed to ensure Tuam will be the only mass grave ever excavated. The Birth Information and Tracing Act comes with barriers and limitations. At the same time, the religious orders and pharmaceutical companies are allowed to get away with murder.

The Government continues to facilitate the cover-up of crimes and human rights abuses and, most cynically and callously, it does so in full knowledge. The Minister knows the long history. He knows what survivors are asking for and what the public wants but he clearly seems not to care. His mantra seems to be to do just enough. He will do just enough for a good headline, just enough to look good and just enough to misrepresent the reality. This is just another form of abuse. Survivors are still being refused their rights. The basic tenets of our justice system have not been applied. Suspicious deaths, disappearances and sexual assaults are all going uninvestigated on purpose. The Minister's proposed redress scheme is the latest example of his approach to the issue. It is designed to give as little compensation to as small a number of survivors as possible. He is excluding people who spent less than six months in institutions as children, those who suffered forced family separation and those subjected to non-consensual medical trials. He is disregarding the wishes of survivors, international human rights bodies and the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

Our motion is based on what many survivors have asked for, what human rights experts have said and what the Irish people want. We are calling on the Government to correct the findings of the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, pay compensation proportionate to the suffering caused and hold the church and the State to account. No one I talk to disagrees with this. These are the most basic elements needed for any form of justice, yet the Government is refusing to do any of them.

The most sickening aspect of the mother and baby homes report was the findings that exonerated the church and State by claiming all of society was to blame. Of course, if everyone is to blame, then no one is to blame and survivors can never get justice. This is a deep insult to those who suffered and still suffer today. It gives the Government cover to push through a pathetic redress scheme that excludes so many survivors and ignores the reality of illegal adoptions and other crimes. What about now? When those same people are being denied basic justice again, will the Minister blame society once more? Is it the fault of people watching today or people in Blanchardstown or west Cork? Are they to blame for this failure? When there is an inquiry into all of this in years to come, and that inquiry might conclude that "Oh well, those were the times", I want this debate to be on the Dáil record.

I do not know what the tactic of the week will be from the Government. Will it be to pass the motion and then ignore it or to vote it down? The Minister might let us know in his reply. Ultimately, it seems clear this motion will not achieve what we want it to achieve. At the very least, I hope people know many of us tried. I want people to know society does not agree with the Government on this. This utter disgrace is on the Minister. He knows the findings of the commission's report were inaccurate. Indeed, he called for an independent review before quietly abandoning it. The High Court case last year revealed the serious flaws in the report, not to mention the evaluation from the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection and other human rights experts. That flawed report is the justification for the Minister's disgraceful and exclusionary redress scheme.

He knows what survivors have gone through. He knows the scale and breadth of abuses perpetrated against women, children and infants by the State and the church. Yet, he is imposing arbitrary time limits with no basis in evidence, excluding people who suffered forced family separation, precluding those who were boarded out and choosing to deny the harm caused by forced labour, mistreatment, racial abuse and much more. His own consultation with the survivors and others, the OAK report, called for a universal, inclusive scheme that recognised the "loss of the mother child bond and relationship which was reported to be the cause of widespread trauma and mental health issues for many survivors" and the harm caused by psychological, physical and sexual abuse, including degrading and dehumanising treatment endured in the homes. The practice of unvetted family placements through adoption, fostering or boarding out was also clearly identified, as well as racial and ethnic discrimination and non-consensual inclusion in medical trials. Moreover, the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection have sought an inclusive scheme that compensates all survivors of this system, with the removal of the time criterion and the legal waiver. Somehow, the Minister has decided to stick with the criterion of time spent in an institution. It is unbelievable.

Today, the Social Democrats are again joining the vast majority of Irish people in asking for accountability. Is any religious order or pharmaceutical company going to pay a cent to this scheme? Why is the Minister not pursuing them? Last week, we learned he is still in negotiations with religious orders. These are bodies that perpetrated horrific abuses, profited from vulnerable people and conducted unauthorised medical trials. Why is he not seizing property? Where are the arrests? The religious orders, in particular, are responsible for mass graves around the country. They are complicit in illegal adoptions and illegal vaccine trials, from which they profited. What is the Minister's response? It is to talk to them and go cap in hand to them as if it were the 1950s.

Can the Minister please explain why he cynically and cruelly commissioned a consultation with survivors only to ignore their wishes? Can he outline why he is purposefully disregarding the UN Human Rights Committee and several special rapporteurs? They have called for all survivors to receive compensation, the removal of time-based restrictions and the removal of any form of waiver. In other debates, the Minister has misrepresented the position of UN human rights experts, but their calls are black and white on this. Can the Minister elaborate on why he has rejected the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which are based on our detailed engagement with survivors, their advocates and human rights experts? Can he tell us why he is not pursuing religious orders and pharmaceutical companies for every penny they owe survivors and their relatives? Finally, can the Minister state for the record why he is committed to continuing the systematic abuse of these people?

See this speech in context