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

On the immigrant investor programme, to be very clear, it does not involve passports or citizenship whatsoever. It never did. The programme involves a residency permit for a number of years if somebody makes a major investment in the State. Nothing specifically came up that was untoward about it. However, the numbers availing of it are much larger than we expected. Almost all came from the one country and that raised concerns. That is why we suspended it. Let us not forget that it brought millions of euro into sports clubs, community centres and economic programmes all around the country. It was not a bad scheme in itself but we suspended it for those reasons. It is not comparable in any way with passports or citizenship or the normal immigration system. It was a permit in return for investment.

Regarding the mother and baby institutions, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, with the agreement of the Government, has appointed Sheila Noonan to engage with religious orders on their making a contribution. They are under no legal obligation to do so and it is unlikely that if we pursued them in the courts, we would be able to secure anything from them through that mechanism. However, we do think they have a moral obligation to make a contribution whether it is in the form of land or moneys. That is what we are seeking, that is what Ms Noonan is seeking and that has been done in the past in relation to other abuse.

As I understand it, the children boarded out who were in mother and baby homes are included and those who were not in mother and baby homes are not. It is a mother and baby homes or institutions scheme. We are not proposing any further changes to the scheme at this stage. We are keen to get it up and running and we want that to happen as soon as possible.

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