Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank and commend Deputy Kathleen Funchion for bringing forward this Bill. Like the speakers before me, I hope the Government will support it. The Bill is important because it seeks to ensure that certain members of any future commission of investigation, into whatever issue it is established to explore, cannot simply discharge their duties upon submission of its final report without a certain level of Oireachtas scrutiny.

Unfortunately, that is what happened with the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. Upon the publication of the report, survivors immediately noted differences between the accounts they gave to the commission and those in the final draft. Then we heard about recordings being deleted. Yet, amid all these concerns, we were told of the planned dissolution of the commission, which has been referred to. At the time, I called on the Minister not to dissolve the commission until answers to survivors' questions could be given by its members. In particular, these had to do with, first, why the survivor testimonies were changed in the report, and who ordered those changes; second, who ordered the original recordings to be deleted, and why; and, third, how survivors can expect to correct the report if the commission no longer exists. The final question represents the fundamental problem with the dissolution of the commission so quickly after the report's publication. The commission was supposed to seek answers, to provide some clarity for those denied justice for so long and to indicate possible routes forward in terms of framing redress and indicating where accountability might lie. It subsequently appeared, however, as though the commission would shake off its own shackles of accountability by dissolving itself almost immediately. This left survivors in the shocking position in which they were angered, upset and misrepresented, without recourse to question the commission about the misrepresentation of their accounts, or the lack of recognition of the hurt and trauma from children separated from their mothers.

Survivors have been through enough injustice in this life, and to be effectively stonewalled in getting inaccuracies and other issues to do with the commission's report addressed was yet another obstacle they had to navigate. Do not get me wrong: the commission served an important purpose, and without it I do not think we would have managed to get further scans done on land previously investigated at Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, in Tipperary. I thank the Minister and the Minister's staff for their assistance and commitment to getting that project approved and under way.

I wish to note the value of having the commission do the work it did. As I said, however, there are a range of issues with this, and the swift dissolution of the committee in the face of unanswered questions and concerns is a key factor here.

That is why the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that this does not occur again in any further commission of investigation, by ensuring future commission members cannot simply discharge their duties upon submission of their final report. It further allows for the appropriate examination by elected representatives of the terms of reference and the methodology and allows them to ask questions of commission members about the report relevant to them. To address any questions about the impact of this on the independence of any future commission, this Bill also provides for instances where former members are not required to give account. We need this Bill to be supported by this House in order that the limitations that survivors have encountered due to the dissolution of the commission are no longer encountered by those to whom future commissions have an obligation.

See this speech in context