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

Ms Mary Harney is a survivor who will be familiar to many of us as one of the women whose statutory right to comment on the draft findings of the commission of investigation was wrongly denied. She once said, "I am not a survivor. I am a small, yet mighty, resisting worker for justice." She has had to spend much of her life fighting for her rights, for her identity and for justice. Unfortunately, the Government, like its predecessors, is continuing to force people like Mary to fight in the courts. Thousands of survivors are excluded from the Government's scheme. Many of them will never receive redress or recognition, if the Minister has his way. They will get nothing for the life-destroying crime of forced family separation, just as nothing will be given to those boarded out to abusive homes and nothing will be given to those from whom pharmaceutical companies have profited. Others will be given as little as €5,000 for a lifetime of trauma. One would get multiples of that for a whiplash injury. It is truly despicable. I thought that the six-month criterion was a red herring to distract all of the opposition from the ridiculously low rates that other survivors get. I thought the Minister would go back on it.

This scheme shows nothing but contempt for survivors. I cannot express how, as a public representative, it turns my stomach. The rules of this House prevent me from expressing the anger that I know is out there today among people watching. The Minister quite perfectly summarised it in his closing remarks. He said that he wanted to "pay tribute ... to survivors" and that nothing "can ever truly undo" the damage caused. He continued:

... by ensuring that the remains of the children buried at Tuam receive a respectful reburial and by bringing forward a payment scheme that will benefit 34,000 former residents, we are humbly acknowledging the State's duty...

If the Minister was humbly acknowledging the State's duty, he would reword his statement to provide that the remains of the children in all known burial sites around the country will receive a respectful reburial and he would bring forward a payment scheme that would benefit all former residents. That would humbly acknowledge the State's responsibility to some extent.

The Minister is being disingenuous. Given the incredibly serious and personal nature of this topic, that is unforgivable. The Minister claims to have listened. That is blatantly untrue. Survivors participated in the Minister's consultation. They rightly called for a scheme recognising all survivors. They know how others have suffered. They know the evil of a system that separates them into different categories. The casual manner in which the Minister disregards their wishes is sickening. He proudly said he has gone beyond the commission's recommendations, as if that were admirable. The commission's recommendations were arbitrary and inconsistent with the testimony given. We must not forget all those excluded from the investigation in the first place. Any scheme based on those recommendations is equally distorted and defective.

The Minister emphasised that the scheme will be non-adversarial, as if this is a benevolence. He tried to set himself up as the good guy by stating that survivors will not have to provide evidence of harm but, of course, this position is based on the fallacy that there are only two options open to him. The Minister can create a process that recognises harm in a way that trusts survivors because at the heart of the Minister's so-called non-adversarial system is the assumption that survivors would lie. They are being treated in the same way they always have by the same judging and distrusting State. It is wrapped up in kinder language but the core prejudice remains.

Why are the Minister and the Government letting the church and the pharmaceutical companies get away with this? There is a deference to the church in some of the Government parties, and the pharmaceutical companies are major employers, but the Minister should be standing up for justice. Honestly, will anyone be held to account for this litany of crimes? Will anybody in the Bon Secours order be held accountable for Tuam? It is an incredibly wealthy organisation profiting from private healthcare, here and internationally. Why is the Minister not aggressively pursuing them, not only for accountability but for compensation for the victims? The Minister should be giving every survivor every cent that he or she is owed and deserves. He should be pursuing the church and the pharmaceutical companies for the costs they bear responsibility for. Not only would it be the right thing to do, but also the Irish people would be squarely behind the Minister. Instead, the Minister seems to think it better to divide the survivors, give as little as possible and hope that this goes away. This will not go away. His term in office will be marked as another disgrace and he will be seen as another failed Minister blatantly ignoring survivors and disregarding human rights.

I had genuinely hoped today would be a wake-up call for the Government but instead, it will cynically allow this motion to pass while ploughing ahead with its exclusionary and paltry so-called redress scheme. I, along with others, will fight the Government every step of the way at all stages of the Minister's Bill because it ignores survivors, rejects human rights and facilitates religious orders and pharmaceutical companies getting away with crimes. This Government is no different from or better than its predecessors. It has learned nothing. It will not be forgiven.

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