Results 21-40 of 119 for mother and baby speaker:Kathleen Funchion

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Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Feb 2023)

Kathleen Funchion: ...final points. First, I will speak to the technical aspects of the amendments. We do not support amendments Nos. 34 to 38, inclusive, on the basis that they refer to the dissolution of the agency and handing the powers over to the Minister at that time. As I said previously, we do not support the dissolution of the agency. There was also talk of five years, which we do not agree with....

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (1 Feb 2023)

Kathleen Funchion: ...we did in the pre-legislative process in the committee was to bring in specialists in childhood trauma. It is probably one of the best sessions that we have ever had because it was so insightful and very interesting in terms of how it works. None of us can know or say what damage is done if one spends two years, two weeks or two days in an institution. One cannot say that someone who...

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (1 Feb 2023)

Kathleen Funchion: I mentioned the Tuam group earlier, but we also have with us James Sugrue and Peter Mulryan, two of the boarded-out children. They want the point to be made that they were given a commitment by the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, about their own cases and that they should not be forgotten. The difficulty we have had with the Government is that members say one thing when they meet survivors but...

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (1 Feb 2023)

Kathleen Funchion: I welcome members of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Alliance in the Public Gallery who have been active not only on this aspect of the scheme but on everything connected with the mother and baby institutions over the years. I speak in support of amendment No. 2 and my amendment No. 62, which is similar. I agree with Deputy Cairns that it was Deputy Sherlock who first gave us the idea that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Environmental Impact of Local Emissions: Discussion (30 Nov 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: .... I know the witnesses have been here a long time. I will say two things. First, when you take on the system or the State in any way, shape or form, you are up against it. You are dismissed and nearly painted as being crazy. The State will do everything in its power not to answer the questions. That leads me to my main point. I am not a member of this committee but I am the Chair...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (15 Nov 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I thank Deputy Sherlock for tabling the amendment because otherwise we would not have been able to discuss many of the amendments we had hoped to discuss. I also want to speak to amendments Nos. 24 and 25, which are in this grouping and were tabled by Deputy Ward and me. My position has been on the record for months, if not years, since we started discussing this. Often when we talk about...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (15 Nov 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: ...with any sort of officialdom, a person's experience is often based on the person he or she meets or engages with. He or she remembers often remembers that person, sometimes for good reasons and other times for negative reasons. It is very important that anyone who is engaged in this is trained in trauma and everything around that. I refer to the independence aspect. As the amendment...

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Second Stage (27 Oct 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: ...cynical part of me thinks that other Ministers did not mind leaving stacks of files on their desk for somebody else to deal with. I acknowledge that the Minister has dealt with many of the outstanding issues relating to the mother and baby institutions. We have not always agreed and, in fact, we have disagreed on many of the issues but I acknowledge that he has at least tried to push on...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2022 (Supplementary)
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised) (12 Oct 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: ...violence services, is there any breakdown of where exactly that is going? How will that work? The Department of Justice is supposed to be taking it all under one umbrella, which is welcome and it is good to have it in one area. The Department of Justice is probably a good fit for it. What impact will that have on the Minister’s Department? The refuges are still being funded by...

Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: From the Seanad (22 Jun 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I welcome the amendments from the Seanad. I suppose there were some good steps from the first process of pre-legislative scrutiny through the various Stages - Committee Stage, Report Stage and the Bill's progress through the Seanad. I still have a major issue with the mandatory information session. I do not think the Minister will be shocked or surprised to hear that. It is my motivation...

Institutional Burials Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (15 Jun 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I welcome this group of amendments. Everyone's concern in this regard was based on what happened in the aftermath of the publication of the report on the mother and baby homes. There was frustration and anger that there was no accountability in that instance. We wrote at least three times to invite representatives from the commission to appear before the Joint Committee on Children,...

Institutional Burials Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (15 Jun 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I move amendment No. 26: In page 30, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following: “(b) a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church," Amendment Nos. 26 to 29, inclusive, seek to ensure that the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic Church are included this information sources, given the central role that they played in mother and baby institutions. Amendment No. 30...

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: General Scheme of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022 (24 May 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: We have received apologies from Deputies Sean Sherlock and Holly Cairns. Senator McGreehan will be joining us online but she will not be on the Leinster House campus. Today's meeting is on the pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme Bill. We have two sessions today. In the first session, we will be joined by officials from the...

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: General Scheme of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022 (24 May 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: We will continue with our second session of pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the mother and baby institutions payments scheme Bill. In this session we are joined by representatives of Oak Conflict Dynamics, namely, Ms Mary Lou O'Kennedy, director; and Ms Estelle Varney, facilitator. From Concordia Consulting, we are joined by Mr. Ray Flaherty, facilitator and managing...

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: General Scheme of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022 (24 May 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I was also going to ask about trauma-informed supports. Part of the difficulty is that when people contact us as Deputies and Senators we direct them to the national helpline. I know there is no waiting time for those who are survivors of mother and baby institutions but often people will not engage in the process because they know it will not be of much benefit. It is a missed opportunity...

Working Group of Committee Chairmen: Public Policy Matters: Engagement with the Taoiseach (12 May 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I thank the Chairman and the staff for organising this. I also thank the Taoiseach for coming in. It is good to have this type of engagement. I know that Deputy Lawless' committee has much legislation but we have had a lot as well. Even just the name of our committee - the Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth - shows the range of topics and wide remit of...

Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (27 Apr 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I think Deputy Bacik has articulated the position very well and eloquently. I must say at the outset, for clarity, that nobody has any issue with a birth parent who wants to register a no-contact preference. It is the parent's right to do so. Everybody would respect that. Some of us believe this mandatory information session, the information session or whatever people want to call it, is...

Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (27 Apr 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: I move amendment No. 15: In page 12, line 12, to delete “Regulation;” and substitute the following: “Regulation. Under this Act, all records relating to the adoption or informal care arrangement of a relevant person are considered to be that person’s personal data, regardless of whether that data is shared with another person. Personal data in relation to a...

Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (27 Apr 2022)

Kathleen Funchion: ...issues later, but it is welcome to see some of the issues discussed on Committee Stage being addressed. It is good to see points raised in the discussions during pre-legislative scrutiny and on Committee Stage and the other Stages being taken on board. As I stated, there have been many different situations, examples and stories from the time of the mother and baby institutions and it is...