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

It is completely disingenuous to give that justification for excluding people who spent less than six months in institutions from the scheme. Some people highlighted time spent in institutions as a matter to look into in the context of redress. It is completely disingenuous. The Minister is completely and blatantly ignoring all the concerns that have been raised in the House, and all the concerns raised with Deputies by the general public, by acting as if he believes this is the right thing to do. We all know that there is no explanation for it and that it is completely indefensible. That is why the Minister consistently avoids answering the question, why there is nobody sitting with the Minister, and why nobody on the Government side ever attends debates on this matter. It is because this is completely inexcusable. The Minister commissioned a report. Its findings were that redress should be based on forced family separation. He ignored that, went down the list and chose this option. His reply is disingenuous.

As it is the last word on this report, and all the other amendments we will speak to are technicalities and do not address the bigger and broader picture, I will say that I genuinely thought, when this six-month criterion was put in, that it was a red herring to distract all of us from the fact that the overall redress scheme offers such a low bar for payments. I thought this six-month requirement would definitely be scrapped-----

See this speech in context