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

The Minister was left with an awful lot of the legacy issues. The cynical part of me thinks that other Ministers did not mind leaving stacks of files on their desk for somebody else to deal with. I acknowledge that the Minister has dealt with many of the outstanding issues relating to the mother and baby institutions. We have not always agreed and, in fact, we have disagreed on many of the issues but I acknowledge that he has at least tried to push on with them, unlike previous Ministers who held the post before him. I will make my comments in that spirit.

Sometimes there is so much to say that I do not even know where to start and other times, when we talk about this topic, I seem to say the same thing time and again. Much of it goes back to the terrible patriarchal mindset at the heart of all of this. First, there is the history of the institutions and how or why they were even allowed to exist. Second, there is the timeline of the commission of investigation report. The report was leaked and we called for a Garda investigation. An internal investigation was launched but, as far as I am aware, we have no information on what exactly happened. Third, there is the report itself. I will never forget sitting upstairs waiting for and reading the report because I was dismayed from the very start. I tried to see how it would go, given there was a lot in it, but the dismissive tone and the disingenuous language was a disaster. That is saying something.

The authors of the report may not have done so but the everybody else understood the torture, deprivation and humiliation that was hidden behind the walls of those institutions. Some 15%, which is the equivalent of 9,000 babies, of all babies born into one of these institutions died which tells its own sad and horrific story. There were calls from some quarters to repudiate the report. The Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth invited the authors of the report to come before it who of course declined. RTÉ made a programme on illegal adoptions, and I believe a report is due from Dr. Niall Muldoon on that matter. We already know how much the people who were born into or sent to these institutions were failed and then they had all of this. Professor Daly, to add insult to injury, spoke at an event in Oxford. The authors of the report were again asked to come before the committee to give some explanation of their findings but they totally refused all of the invitations.

While I acknowledge the Birth Information and Tracing Act is a step forward for many people, there is still that mandatory information session, which brings me back to the patriarchal mindset. It is as though people who were born into or sent to the institutions have to be constantly told that they may not be able for all of this. The we-know-best attitude is inherent to all of this. We had judicial cases some of which were successful. In contrast, we had the Institutional Burials Bill, which was actually a very good example of legislation being done the right way. Stuff that was discussed in pre-legislative scrutiny was taken on board and some, while not all, of the amendments on Committee Stage were taken on board. That is in contrast to this legislation and the Birth Information and Tracing Act.

I know nobody in this House needs a history of the situation, but it is important to realise how, time and again, people have been failed by the State, religious organisations and the system. Unfortunately, this generation of politicians will be added to that failure if we do not properly take this on board, make proper recommendations and ensure that it is not just words on a page or nodding heads of sympathy. It is terrible what happened and we can all apologise but we have to see proper action. By proper action, I mean much of the stuff that was in the OAK consultation report, the process of which survivors were very happy.

I will never understand the six-month rule. I cannot understand how someone who was five months in an institution can be totally left out. I totally disagree with that and we will bring forward amendments on Committee Stage. I do not like the inclusion of a legal waiver. It goes back to the mindset of "we know best" and there is an issue of trust. I also know of some legal firms that have written to survivors since the report was published to tell them that they may need legal assistance. Such firms should take a good long look at themselves because, in some cases, they just trying to get people to sign up and to get money from very vulnerable people. Those firms know exactly who they are and they should stop.

The exclusion of those who were boarded out is horrific. The Minister made reference to it. He is aware of the two brothers to whom Deputy Pa Daly regularly refers, Mr. James Sugrue and his brother, who were among those who were boarded out. The Minister said in his speech that they would be able to apply if they were in an institution for six months. It does not take into account that in most cases they were used as slaves in the situation. Has the list of institutions that was in the mother and baby investigation report been expanded?

Human rights experts spoke at length about systemic racism faced by mixed-race people resident in the institutions, much of which does not seem to have been taken on board.

Some 58,208 people passed through one of the mother and baby institutions. That is the total number of people who should be supported by means of any proposed redress scheme. That brings me to the pharmaceutical companies and religious orders that have come out and publicly apologised. They have acknowledged their role in all this, yet they seem to think they have no part to play when it comes to writing a cheque. That is absolutely disgusting in light of the amount of wealth the religious organisations and the pharmaceutical companies own. They should be pursued strongly. We should be looking to see if there is any way we can pursue them through the courts because if somebody acknowledges and apologises for something publicly, surely they are saying they have a very strong role to play. It is disgusting to think the companies felt it was okay to use people as human guinea pigs and that they can just walk away from their responsibilities now.

I again acknowledge everyone who has ever contacted me or whom I have met. Much of the time - and I appreciate it is mean sincerely - we acknowledge the courage and bravery of people but when the women who were sent to these institutions come in they often feel they need to tell us all their very personal medical stuff, just because they are trying to access medical services. That is totally and utterly wrong. Much of the time these are very personal situations people might not even want to discuss with their own family. They are coming in to a total stranger because they are so desperate to get medical services and are being left on waiting lists. I hope that whatever medical card is being proposed will be sufficient to ensure that these people are not just going to be joining the back of a three-, four-, five- or six-year waiting list and that they will get the services they need. This applies to the women who were left to give birth in the most horrific of circumstances and who have never been the same physically since. I feel strongly about that, and about all of it, but the religious organisations and the pharmaceutical companies aspect really bothers me. I hope they are watching today, though they probably do not care. I hope we can go after them in some way, shape or form and that they will be made pay their fair share of everything. As we all know, there is no price that can be put on this but the very first thing we do should not be to exclude people. Everybody needs to be included in this scheme. I refer to the OAK recommendations. Survivors trusted the OAK process and anyone I spoke to was - "happy" is not the word - satisfied with it. They felt they were listened to and that they were given time. Those are the recommendations we should be looking at for the redress.

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