Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I appreciate her comments regarding how the mother and baby home issue was handled. There is some possibility. I take on board what the Minister said regarding setting out a statement. I have to say, and the Minister will not be surprised, that just because of the level of work, particularly with the involvement of the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, I do not see the difficulties the Minister is outlining with the Bill. Rather than rehashing that, however, there may be some way we can consider amending the legislation. I know what the Minister is saying that sometimes it is in the terms of reference, but there may be a way of putting it in that it has to be part of the terms of reference or something else. If we can get a commitment that we can work on that, that would be good. We basically do not want a situation where what happened already happens again. The Minister is saying the commission of investigation has to come with a factual situation. If we look at the example I gave regarding the forced adoptions, that is just one part of it. However, it is one of the clearest. It was so obvious that the finding contradicted the evidence they provided themselves. If they are setting out factually that this is what they found from speaking to women, but then their finding is different, it is those types of things. Again, not to repeat myself, but it is not to interfere with that independence. It is to actually not allow a situation where so much time, effort and energy has gone into a report that everyone is waiting for, and when it comes out, everyone is left with far more . For those who are directly involved and who are telling their lived experience, not only are they left with more questions, but they are left with far more hurt, upset and anger. If there is a possibility of us looking at this, I would like to explore that.

Separate to that, as I said at the start, the reason for this was my involvement with so many women. I want to acknowledge them today. I never fail to be surprised by the number of women who have come forward to tell their stories. It even turns out that so many women I know had their own stories to tell, which maybe we would not realise. It is not an easy thing to do. It was a very difficult situation. There are so many women still trying to find children who are clearly well into their forties and fifties at this point and still have not been able to find them, and the same for adult children trying to find their mothers. It is just devastating and heartbreaking to think that we cannot go back into the past and change that situation, particularly as a mother. However, when it comes to what we can do going forward in trying to achieve this, whether it is setting out the factual situation of what happened to them or something else, there will always be a level of justice expected in that. We need to do that to our absolute best ability. The legislation has been there since 2004. It is not too demanding to ask that it be reviewed and that we look at how we can make some sort of positive changes to it. I would like to get a commitment on that. I will leave it at that.

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