Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to add to that contribution in the same vein. The Minister for Justice commissioned an independent study into familicide and domestic homicide almost four years ago. The fair procedure strand of that process was concluded before the study was submitted to the Minister last summer but the report is still on the desk unpublished. The programme for Government, as the Taoiseach knows, commits to legislating to introduce domestic homicide reviews. A system such as this was established in the North in 2020 and a similar process has been in place in Britain for more than a decade. It is a valuable tool, not just to assess what happened but to prevent traumatic events such as this. We have one of the highest rates of domestic abuse and femicide in Europe, yet I see no urgency from Government in meeting the commitment to introduce this critical tool. When will this study be published and when will the legislation be advanced?

I might raise a second issue. I have raised the issue of boarded-out children and catering for them under the redress scheme. I am minded of Derek Leinster, who had an experience of the Bethany Home in Rathgar, a Protestant institution. Unspeakable cruelty took place in that institution and there were unbelievable mortality rates among very young children there, which was horrific. Like Derek, many of them were boarded out. Derek died last November and lots of us knew him really well as he was a great campaigner. He always felt left behind on two counts, first, because he was boarded out and brutalised on the watch of the State, and yet that experience has been given lip service and nothing else. Second, he was a Protestant citizen and there was always a niggling suspicion in his mind and in the minds of others who came through that institution, that somehow they were lesser.

There are many shortcomings with the redress scheme, for example this six-month rule is just abhorrent and obnoxious. I urge again that this issue of children who were boarded out and brutalised and the issue of Bethany Home in my own home neighbourhood and in Deputy Bacik's constituency, will not be glossed over.

These questions and issues do not go away. Such was the nature of the trauma young children and babies experienced. I thank an Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for his indulgence.

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