Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I support amendments Nos. 27 to 30, inclusive. They are very practical amendments to the Bill. The Minister should take them on board. However, I will take the opportunity tonight, because it is probably the last time I will get the opportunity to speak on this, to read two or three accounts from people who sent emails. We have been bombarded with emails in the past couple of weeks. I welcome that. We have received 1,336 emails. Mr. John Campbell, Deputy Pringle's parliamentary assistant, checked it up to midday yesterday. It is a brilliant response from people and supporters who have been subjected to the mother and baby institutions. I will not call them homes. I have cleared this with the people who sent them in.

The first email is from Noelle Brown, who is a survivor of Bessborough mother and baby home and an adoption rights activist. She is asking us to please listen and act with respect towards survivors and oppose this Bill. Noelle goes on to say survivors have had to witness the Government rushing through a discriminatory information and tracing Bill "despite huge opposition from survivors". According to Noelle, the Government has rushed through the burials Bill, ignoring most sites, including Bessborough, where she was born and where she was subject to vaccine trials. Noelle calls herself "lucky to make it out alive", when hundreds did not and their bodies are scattered across the ground of Bessborough. She says she has met the mothers of those children still looking for them "50 years later" and points out that Bessborough is only "one home in a long list of mass graves" throughout Ireland, many of them unacknowledged by the Bill.

Noelle writes that the twin tenets of this Bill, according to the Government, are acts of kindness and do not harm. According to Noelle, it does "neither of these" but only serves to magnify the level of disrespect, abuse and retraumatising survivors have been subjected to, every time they are asked to be listened to. She says survivors are "continually infantilised" and told they are central to every Bill being enacted, but they are not. Noelle goes on to say that since the publication of the "appalling" commission of investigation report into mother and baby homes, things have got so much worse for survivors. Noelle tells us we have a chance to oppose this Bill and "do right" by generations of Irish citizens who are still shamed and denied their human rights for the simple fact of being born outside of marriage or having given birth outside of marriage decades ago.

She finishes by asking us to listen and to help to finally create a chance for truth, justice and reconciliation. As I said, that email was from Ms Noelle Brown.

I also received an email from Mr. Joe McManus, who the Minister probably knows. He writes that one of the most disappointing aspects of following the various Dáil proceedings with regards to mother and baby institutions is the continuous erosion of trust. He points out that for many burdened with State and Church forced separation, trusting people is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do and that this is a medically proven by-product of the neurological damage caused by early separation. He refers to the Minister saying that for his part, he is committed to ensuring this Government's response will mark a profound transformation not only in the State's engagement with survivors but also in its support for them. The email points out that the Minister said that the relationship of trust between the State and former residents of these institutions has been broken and that the Government must begin the process of rebuilding that relationship. That was on 19 January, 2021.

Encouraged by the Taoiseach's 2021 apology and the Minister's public commitment, Mr. McManus points out that many survivors pushed down vulnerabilities and let themselves trust the State which had wronged them so egregiously in the past. However, what followed was the publication of a report derided by most, a report shown to be factually incorrect in the State's highest court. This was soon followed by the OAK report, commissioned by the Minister, whose recommendations were subsequently ignored, argues Mr. McManus. Committee groups were convened by the Minister, who then dismissed their recommendations. There were debates on Bills "that disallowed vast swathes of amendments" and those that were allowed were shot down. The very process of some of these debates was "mired in cute hoorism"; carefully timed just before the Dáil recess, allowing little or no debate - a point raised by both the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the European Commission. The same carefully timed tactic was previously deployed by the Minister when debates were held on the AssistedDecision-Making (Capacity) Amendment Bill. Even the State's own special rapporteur on child protection reported on the inadequacy of the State's response on the subject. In reply to mounting criticism, the Minister promised to complete a legal review of the mother and baby home report, a promise he reneged on months later. Yet, despite all of this, Mr. McManus writes "TDs and Ministers still want us to trust them" but such trust that is not only not earned, but has been proven completely unworthy with the exclusion of over 40% from redress. He asks that the Government makes good on its apologies, rebuilds trust and excludes no one from the redress scheme.

These are the voices of people who have gone through the system, a rotten and cruel system. I want to put on the record again the points that have been made by the 34 clinicians on the question of whether research in the area of early childhood trauma was referred to by the officials who were drafting the redress scheme. The Minister knows the points they made. They said that it does matter if a child is separated from his or her mother in the early stages of life, especially in the first couple of months. Again, I am pleading with the Minister on their behalf to review the situation. There is still time.

On the issue of the six-month limit, if it is not about money then what is it about? Why are they excluded? It cannot be on the basis of the Birth Information and Tracing Act because that is their entitlement. They are entitled to access their birth certificates so it cannot be in compensation for that. I ask the Minister to stand up and say what the six month limit is about, not after this Bill has been passed but now so that people know what the issue is there.

I also have another email that I would like to read into the Dáil record from Ms Breeda Murphy from the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Alliance. I may get the opportunity to do so later. I want to speak on behalf of those with lived experience of mother and baby homes.

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