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

It was incredible and somewhat excruciating to watch the Minister speak for almost seven minutes and not reference the main concerns that were raised in the Chamber, particularly the concerns raised by Deputies Boyd Barrett and Connolly. The Minister is right to highlight that this is one aspect of what has been going on in regard to mother and baby homes. For the past three years on the children committee, chaired by Deputy Funchion, we have been working on the birth information and tracing legislation and the burials Bill. The birth information and tracing legislation was announced with such fanfare in regard to people getting their information, yet it is a basic entitlement that everybody else in the country already had, so it does not deserve any kind of a medal or anything like that. People are actually waiting far longer than was promised for their information and they are still getting in touch with all of us to say they have not got their information yet, so there is no kudos for that.

With regard to the burials Bill, we have a situation where the Minister has legislated to just intervene at Tuam. That is very welcome and there needs to be intervention there, but we know there are mass unmarked graves all over the country, and the Minister has legislated to not intervene there. Here we go again - the bare minimum, the exclusion of people and hierarchy. It is the same thing again. I am glad the Minister highlighted it because it is important to give context to that. It is a disgrace.

I want to re-emphasise the need to, at the very least, give an explanation as to why the Minister has excluded people who spent less than six months in an institution. The Department carried out the OAK report. The findings of that report stated that the highest thing that survivors reported they wanted the redress to be based on was what Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about, namely, separation of mother and child and forced family separation. That was the main finding of the report. The Department ignored that and went much further down the list of things in the feedback, and went with time spent in institutions. Can the Minister outline to the Chamber and to the people in the Visitors Gallery how on earth the Department came to that conclusion? We still do not know. It was printed in the Irish Examineryesterday that a freedom of information request was submitted to the Department for it to explain how that conclusion was come to. What did they get back? That it was in the national interest for the Department not to say how it came to do that because it could upset a “vulnerable group” of people. It is basically saying “We are not going to tell you why you have been shafted because it might upset you.”

The general public do not accept this treatment of survivors any more. It has gone on for far too long. I do not think the Minister quite realises how much people are against this. I agree with Deputy Sherlock that we will not see the end of this and that cases will be taken in court if the Minister does not change tack.

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