Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The mother and baby institutions payments scheme is currently being debated by the Oireachtas. The scheme will include financial payments to an estimated 34,000 people and a form of enhanced medical card for almost 20,000 who were resident in mother and baby and county home institutions. This will come at a cost of approximately €800 million to the taxpayer. It is one of the biggest schemes of its type as we seek to put right some of the wrongs of the past.

While no measure could possibly hope to make up for the trauma and wrongs committed in institutional settings in the 20th century, the Government has engaged and responded in a meaningful way. We have brought forward redress in several different forms - and it is not just about money - one of which is the proposed payments scheme, which is the largest scheme ever brought forward by the State in the context of the number of intended recipients. Report Stage of the Bill was taken in the Dáil on 1 February Bill, and proceedings thereon were adjourned until today. The Bill will be presented in the Seanad shortly after it has been passed by the Dáil. The scheme will open as soon as possible in 2023, once the legislation is passed by the Oireachtas and the administrative framework is in place. We want no further delays in that regard. In parallel with the legislative process, intensive work is under way on the development of the structures we need to put in place to administer the payments scheme. These structures will include an independent executive office located in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

We recognise the fact that many women face significant barriers, including the lack of financial and family support that left them with no choice in this matter. They were abandoned by the fathers of their children, as was noted in the report of the commission of investigation. Shame, stigma and ostracism all contributed profoundly to a hostile environment in which to be a single mother outside marriage. The implication that, in all cases, adoption equated to forced family separation can create a harmful and hurtful narrative for adoptive parents and their children, whether those children were adopted from a mother and baby institution or another setting. We need to be sensitive to that too.

The Government's view is we want a payments system that is non-adversarial, does not involve any investigative element and does not have to rely on incomplete or non-existent documentary evidence. Instead, a generalised payment without the need for assessment has been brought forward for every surviving woman who spent any time at all in any of the institutions. For children who spent less than six months in an institution and who were adopted or otherwise separated from their birth families, the overwhelming priority need that has been expressed through the extensive engagement with those concerned is access to records and information about their identities. For those children who spent short periods in institutions during their infancy, the action plan provides a response to their needs. This will primarily happen through the Birth Information and Tracing Act and the investment that has been made to support the implementation of this legislation. The new information and tracing service under the Act opened to applications last October. It provides, for the first time, access to birth certificates and also wider birth and early life information for those who have questions about their origins.

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