Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion and giving us an opportunity to discuss the mother and baby institutions redress scheme.

The make up of the scheme is very disappointing. It is exclusionary rather than inclusive. People who were resident in mother and baby institutions for six months or less are deeply disappointed and distressed to find out that they remain excluded from the scheme. Inclusion and equality are clearly missing from the proposed scheme. It seems to be more about achieving reduced costs and reduced liability. What it has achieved is an increased mistrust among survivors, which was already high as a direct result of their appalling treatment by successive Governments. Provisions seeking to deny or limit liability by the State or other private entities should not be included in this legislation or in the payment scheme. It is simply not good enough. It is time for this Government to respect all mother and baby home survivors and families.

It is also vitally important that the relevant religious congregations and pharmaceutical organisations do not avoid accountability. They must contribute significant finances to fund the scheme. Substantive recourse from these bodies needs to be insisted upon immediately. It is time that religious institutions and pharmaceutical companies are forced to compensate survivors for the harm and suffering they caused.

There is no recognition of the hurtful trauma experienced by children separated at birth from their mothers. The exclusion of children resident in a home for less than six months is a dereliction of the State’s responsibility to all survivors. The recommendations and views shared by survivors conducted by Oak Consulting have been largely ignored. The concerns raised by Dr. Niall Muldoon, Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, in a report commissioned by the Minister are not reflected in the redress plans either. The UN special rapporteur, UN Human Rights Committee and UN human rights experts have individually called for appropriate compensation, removal of legal waivers and for any scheme to address child victims of racial discrimination within Irish institutions from 1940 until the 1990s. These calls have also been largely ignored. This is totally unacceptable. It is time to change the redress scheme to meet the needs of survivors and families.

What this current scheme does is effectively create a hierarchy of suffering. We know the majority of survivors spent six months or less in a mother and baby home or county home. The commission’s authors state this. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, is calling for the legislation to be amended to remove the requirement of a six-month stay to ensure that all children who were resident in a relevant institution and-or were adopted are eligible to apply to the scheme.

The Minister's rowing back on appointing a human rights expert to examine testimony given to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is unacceptable. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties wrote to the Minister setting out exactly why this is essential. The Minister has once again ignored this plea. Instead he has opted to introduce a new initiative to support survivors to tell their personal stories so that they can be formally recorded and accepted as part of the official record.

While we welcome the development of a national site of remembrance and interpretation, as proposed for Seán MacDermott Street, new testimony will not remedy the problem that came to light in June 2021 that the vast majority of the evidence given by survivors to the commission was not effectively considered. An independent examination of the testimony given to the commission is vital to ensure justice is done because a human rights legal expert will be able properly to assess whether there is evidence of human rights abuse and potentially crimes that must be investigated in the original testimony given by survivors.

The gathering of stories outside of a formal legal process does not meet Ireland’s human rights obligations to ensure truth, justice and accountability under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, and our Constitution’s protection of due process and fair procedures. No justice can be delivered if the evidence never comes to light or is maintained in a parallel system of evidence gathered outside a formal legal process.

All those affected need to be treated equally and fairly regardless of how long they spent in an institution. It does not matter what age a person was when he or she was removed from their families. It has had an impact on him or her. The Government must respect all mother and baby home survivors and families. It must change the redress scheme to meet the needs of all survivors and families and it must force religious institutions and pharmaceutical companies to contribute significant finances for the compensation of survivors and families.

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