Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Funchion, Sherlock, Cairns and others for their comments and contributions. For clarity, I want to respond briefly to something Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said. Of course, there were many decent people in the church and State, but there was a system that was official, orchestrated and systematic. It was approved and endorsed at the highest level of the State for most of its history and at the highest level of the church. Yes, there may have been individuals who were appalled, tried to do their best and so on, but this was the system of the State and the church. Every single mother and child who had their identity taken from them, every child who was torn out of his or her mother's arms and every mother who had a child torn out of her arms is a victim of abuse by church and State. There is an idea that we can exclude them. Of course, beyond that, some people suffered much worse, but it had nothing to do with an arbitrary date of six months. It often had something to do with being boarded out or being discriminated against on the grounds of colour or class, but it had nothing to do with arbitrary dates of a week, a month, six months or whatever. There is no basis for these exclusions, including the exclusion of institutions for the failure to acknowledge particular suffering, or for arbitrary dates. It is shocking that the Minister will still not respond to that central point. There is no justification for it.

I did psychology in university as one of my subjects. There are many schools of psychology, but there is not one serious school of psychology that believes there is a blank slate for the first six months and that things that happen to a person from day one do not impact on a lifelong basis. If a person is traumatised and something is done wrong to him or her, such as mothers and children being separated at that age, it leaves a lifelong imprint on the person. The person has been wronged. The State must acknowledge that but it is failing to do so. The Minister has not even shown the decency of explaining to the survivors how he came to this decision. Perhaps it is because there is no explanation. It is an accountant's decision and that is compounding the abuse, suffering and injustice of so many.

See this speech in context