Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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98. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the status of the development of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme Bill 2022; when the Bill will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50718/22]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Will the Minister update the House on the status of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme Bill? Forgive me if I am emotional, but also quite professional, on this matter. I have followed it at every level so far. I am asking my question in the hope that the Government has learned from the Ombudsman's report in 2017, which referred to a lost opportunity, and that we have learned from the cross-party recommendations, the OAK consultation process and many other documents.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am acutely aware of the sense of urgency surrounding the establishment of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme and I am focused on delivering that scheme as soon as possible. On Tuesday, I brought the Bill providing for the payment scheme to the Government and obtained approval for its publication and presentation to the Houses later this month.

The scheme will provide financial payments and an enhanced medical card to eligible survivors in acknowledgement of suffering experienced while resident in mother and baby and county home institutions. Recognising the impact that mother and baby institutions had on much of Irish society, the scheme will be one of the largest of its kind in terms of the numbers expected to benefit. Some 34,000 survivors will be eligible for financial payments and 19,000 will be eligible for enhanced medical cards under the scheme. The scheme's overall value will be €800 million. All mothers who spent time in an institution and all children who spent six months or more in an institution will be eligible for a payment, with the amount increasing based on their length of stay. There will be an additional work-related payment for women who were resident in certain institutions for more than three months, while an enhanced medical card will be available to everyone who was resident in a mother and baby or county home institution for six months or more.

Recognising the importance of delivering this scheme for survivors, I hope to bring the Bill through both Houses swiftly. Subject to the legislation being passed and enacted and the administrative structures being established, the scheme will open for applications.

I will discuss two changes of significance in the Bill. We have banded the various payments so that an individual who was in an institution for five years and one month and another individual who was there for five years and 11 months will receive different payments in recognition of the longer time. Importantly, absences from an institution of less than 180 days will be discounted, recognising that those absences were often due to illnesses as a result of the stay in that particular institution.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I welcome that the legislation is to be published and will appear before the Dáil. I welcome the change to the bands as well as the changes regarding the absences. However, the Minister is persisting with a scheme that maintains the imbalance of power and the division and is coldly and calculatedly directed at reducing costs. The Minister is excluding the babies who were resident for less than six months, which is at odds with the committee's report and what was recommended by the experts - 34 clinicians who work in the area of childhood trauma - who contacted him. Childhood trauma, which includes separation from primary caregivers and being exported to multiple caregivers in an institutional setting, has the greatest impact early in childhood. Thus, to state that young children who might have been in mother and baby homes for a period of two to three months early in life are less impacted by those who spent longer there is not scientifically correct. Indeed, the opposite is true.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We have sought to learn from previous schemes in how we have designed and will implement this one. We examined the residential institutions redress scheme, under which individuals had to appear before a committee to give evidence and face cross-examination. Everyone understands that that was a retraumatising process.

We have designed this scheme based on the length of time in an institution. A person will receive the relevant payment according to his or her length of time in the institution. This means that all an applicant needs to do is prove the amount of time spent in the institution. There will be no calling in, no questioning and no retraumatisation. This is the best way forward in trying to design a scheme that provides individuals with payments quickly - recognising the age of many people - and does not result in a retraumatisation. That is why we have gone with a scheme based on time spent within institutions.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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One minute cannot do justice to this issue or to those who have suffered as a result of Government decisions and the behaviour of institutions. The Minister is persisting with a cold, calculated scheme that is based on reducing costs. He is excluding all of those who were boarded out. He is excluding the thousands who spent less than six months in an institution. He is ignoring scientific evidence, the OAK consultation and the UN's concerns about the systematic racism experienced by those who are not white and who spent longer in institutions and suffered more. He is ignoring what the Ombudsman told us in 2017, namely, to learn from the debacle that was the Magdalen redress scheme. Ignoring that is an opportunity lost. Given that there will be a waiver system under this Bill, the Minister is failing to learn from the redress scheme that he referenced, which also had a waiver system. On every level, there is an utter failure to learn. What is horrible and unacceptable about all of this is that the Minister is persisting with a language of equality and justice that bears no connection to the scheme that he is proposing.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I welcome this legislation and the work that the Minister, his Department and the committee have done to shape the scheme. In recent weeks, it has been great to see many people coming forward to register their interest in receiving information on their time in mother and baby institutions and their adoptions. It is fantastic that those records have been made available.

I have been contacted by someone who spent less than six months in an institution. It would be great if this issue were considered in terms of redress.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Anyone who spent time in an institution for more than six months and was subsequently boarded out will be able to qualify under the scheme. A broad statement was made that boarded out people were being excluded, so it is important to clarify that anyone who was in an institution and was subsequently boarded out can fit within the remit of the scheme.

On the suggestion that this will be an exclusionary scheme, I have worked at all points to broaden it. Consider the original recommendations from the commission in respect of the scheme that it proposed - no one included after 1974 and no one included if he or she were accompanied in the institution. Those recommendations would have applied to approximately 6,500 people.

The interdepartmental group used an overall timeline of six months. This would have included approximately 19,000 people. What I am bringing forward will include 34,000 people in the payment scheme. This payment scheme is one part of the State's response.

Deputy Higgins addressed other aspects in the context of information and tracing, the Institutional Burials Act 2022, free access to counselling and the records and memorials centre. The State is bringing forward a wide range of responses to individuals who spent time in mother and baby and county institutions.