Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The more I reflect on the various State apologies issued, the more I become convinced that the Government does not mean a word of it. Tomorrow we debate the amendments to the mother and baby homes Bill. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, snuck in a number of amendments in the Seanad. In my reading, amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6 would exclude countless women from the redress scheme who were sent to mother and baby homes to give birth, and had their babies there, but were not held in those mother and baby homes. We know of huge cohorts of those who were born in those homes who will be excluded from the scheme. However, we were promised no mother or child would be excluded from this scheme. This is shocking. These women had their babies and those babies were forcibly removed from their mothers. Those mothers and babies were not held in the homes subsequently but they suffered significant trauma. Is it the Government's intention to exclude these significant cohorts? If it is, does that not contradict the apologies the Government has committed to these people?

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