Results 1-20 of 21 for mother and baby homes speaker:Erin McGreehan

Did you mean: other and baby home speaker:549?

Seanad: An Bille um an Naoú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (An Teaghlach), 2023: An Dara Céim - Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Second Stage (22 Jan 2024)

Erin McGreehan: I welcome the Minister to the House. There is a lot of stuff going on that I would like to digest. I very much welcome the proposed change in the referendum. I welcome that the Government and the State are at a point of recognising that not all families are based on marriage, that there should not be a tier or a hierarchy of family, and that families like Senator Garvey's and mine should...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 May 2023)

Erin McGreehan: ...No. 36 in support of the concept of going after those responsible for the drug trials. All of us in the House agree that illegal vaccine trials were done. The Bill is not the place for it and this amendment is not the amendment for it. However, I am in agreement with Senator Boyhan that we should look at the next steps and how we can work. I know the House will support the Minister on...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Second Stage (19 Apr 2023)

Erin McGreehan: I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome Ms Sheila O'Byrne and all of the people in the Public Gallery. I am glad that we are finally debating this Bill. We know we have needed it for a long time. Redress is one of the ways in which we are dealing with the mother and baby home legacy. We know mother and baby homes represent a dark chapter in our history. Thousands of women...

Seanad: Institutional Burials Bill 2022: Second Stage (23 Jun 2022)

Erin McGreehan: The Minister is very welcome to the House and I thank him for his comprehensive overview of the Bill. I will not go into it in as fine detail as the Minister. Today is an important milestone along the tragic dark road we are all facing up to. Since entering the Oireachtas I have had many meetings with the families affected, mostly the women. I have cried at those meetings; I have been...

Seanad: International Women's Day 2022: Statements (9 Mar 2022)

Erin McGreehan: The Minister is very welcome to the House. It is now international women's week. We are celebrating it for an entire week these days. It is another week of repetition and asking for the same things again - demanding and hoping for equal rights, better healthcare, safer streets and homes, improved childcare and asking to be listened to in this male-dominated world. It often feels...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Feb 2022)

Erin McGreehan: ...Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill was published today. It is a really important Bill. It is critical that we get this through our Houses, passed, put into legislation, enacted and put into place as quickly as possible. If I was born, and if those boys over there were born in a different time, I would be in a mother and baby home. I am an unmarried mother. When I...

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: Child Poverty: Discussion (14 Dec 2021)

Erin McGreehan: ...start of the meeting as there was a vote in the Seanad so I offer my apologies. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I cannot say I enjoyed the contributions because they were sobering and hard to hear. The first line of the submission from Rialto Youth Project suggests that Ireland has higher levels of child poverty than the EU average, which is stark. What is the main cause...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (17 Nov 2021)

Erin McGreehan: I acknowledge the publication of the mother and baby homes institutional payment scheme. I welcome the scheme, and I ask that we have a debate on it, its importance and what went into the making of it. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, undertook a great deal of work to get that scheme published yesterday. I refer as well to the...

Seanad: National Maternity Hospital: Statements (2 Jul 2021)

Erin McGreehan: We will agree on that Senator Keogan. However, this State is a republic. As we enter into the next 100 years of this republic, when we start investing in our State care and hospitals, we should own everything to do with our hospitals. I feel really deeply worried and concerned about how this conversation has gone in the last five minutes but I am not going to rehash the arguments that have...

Seanad: Reports on Department of Health Policy in RTÉ Investigates Programme: Statements (29 Mar 2021)

Erin McGreehan: I thank the Minister of State. I was very glad to hear her comments. It was only human for all of us, including me as a mother and spokesperson on disability, to be absolutely horrified when we watched the report last week indicating that we have a Department that has been holding private medical records for decades for no reason other than that those concerned are involved in litigation,...

Seanad: Family Leave Bill 2021: Second Stage (12 Mar 2021)

Erin McGreehan: ...been contacting us about increased adoptive leave so it is great to be able to give a timeline to them. To respond to Senator Mullen's comment that a family is founded in reality when it is a man and woman, that view is founded in a reality of prejudice. A family is a family, whatever way the child is brought into the world, loved and taken care of. We are leaving that prejudice behind...

Seanad: International Women's Day: Statements (8 Mar 2021)

Erin McGreehan: I stand here as a very proud member of mná na hÉireann, a descendant of our ancient warriors and modern rebels, from Queen Maeve, who battled in the mountains above my home to secure ownership of the Brown Bull of Cooley, to Granuaile the pirate queen, who proved her might on sea and was a formidable force in politics, to the more recent day heroes of my party, Fianna Fáil,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Engagement with the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality, Integration and Youth (16 Feb 2021)

Erin McGreehan: Many of us present, including the Minister, have stated that the report is imperfect. He said as much to us in the Seanad and said it again here. We are all disappointed with the contradictions. The executive summary does not relate to the testimony in a way. It is cold, as the Minister rightly said. This is an independent report, not a Government or Oireachtas report, but the Oireachtas...

Seanad: Report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation: Statements (19 Jan 2021)

Erin McGreehan: I thank the Minister for attending today. For many this January has been a dark month and the report has definitely made it worse. First, I will briefly address the leaking of the report before its publication. Shame on whoever did it. Obviously, that person has never had their agency and their rights taken away from them and I hope the Minister investigates the issue. It was an extra...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (1 Dec 2020)

Erin McGreehan: I thank the Minister for coming into the House. As Senator Fitzpatrick said, this is a really important issue. We all have cried a tear and listened to many of the survivors in this country and the adoptees of those survivors who lived in the mother and baby homes. There are a few things I will mention that continue on from what Senator Fitzpatrick was saying. Tusla has stated in the media...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Erin McGreehan: I welcome the Minister and thank him for joining us today. We have a huge body of work to get through. The Department and the committee has a huge and diverse range of issues in our work programme. I welcome what the Minister has said about the childcare sector. It is a huge priority. As someone who did not get to work because of a lack of childcare when my children were younger it is a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Sustainable Development Goals and Departmental Priorities: Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (3 Nov 2020)

Erin McGreehan: I ask the Minister for a guarantee that the balance of rights will be ensured between mother and child and the personal information of the mother will be accessible within her rights. From listening to survivors and mothers I know they are very afraid their personal details will be handed out when they do not want them to be. This will be very difficult for some adoptees. It is the...

Seanad: Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020: Second Stage (14 Oct 2020)

Erin McGreehan: I welcome the Minister of State. I reflect on this opportunity to speak here today on the mother and baby homes as an honour and a great responsibility. What the State, the country, the church and our people did to these women and babies was disgusting. It was wrong and I am ashamed that this is the story of our nation in terms of it treated women, girls and children. It is incredible...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Jul 2020)

Erin McGreehan: I ask the Leader to request that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy O'Gorman, come to the House. As all Members are aware, there is a serious crisis in the childcare industry. Many mothers of young babies or older children are trying to go back to work, but are prevented from doing so by a lack of childcare facilities. This goes back to the issue of the under-resourcing...