Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire. Ba mhaith liom mo ghlór a chur leis na glórtha atá anseo go dtí seo ar an ábhar fíor-thruamhéileach seo.
I would like to start by commending Catherine Corless, the researcher, and Teresa Killeen Kelly, the chairperson of the Tuam mother and babies committee, on bringing the recent revelations to light and working so hard.
There is an element of déjà vuabout this as we are again discussing an issue that, at its core, relates to the treatment of Irish women and children by religious orders and the State. Not so long ago the Taoiseach stood in the Dáil Chamber and apologised on behalf of the State to the women of the Magdalen laundries. Before that the Ryan report gave shocking revelations of what life was like for young men and women in the industrial schools and orphanages that marked the landscape of every city and town in Ireland. In lifting the veil on this horrific aspect of our past we are now faced with the prospect of a Pandora's box that is characterised by violence, terror, abuse, shattered lives and broken people. In this system of gulags death, both real and metaphorical, was the order of the day. We now know hundreds, if not thousands, of children died in these centres of detention otherwise known as mother and baby homes. We also know babies were wrenched from their mothers in a most coercive and manipulative manner. The mothers concerned were virtually powerless, rendered sinful and outcast by a society steeped in a cruel and conservative Catholicism. As has been mentioned, they were ostracised and condemned as fallen women.
Their punishment was cruel and terrifying. Shut away behind thick and high convent walls these women scrubbed and polished convent floors while heavily pregnant and did so until immediately before they were due to give birth. Once in labour they were refused access to pain relief. As if to remind them that in the eyes of the Irish church, State and society they were somehow not respectable and less than whole, they were denied stitches after childbirth. The barbaric theft of women from these vulnerable women and the cruel and inhuman way they were treated is a stark warning to us all of what happens when fear and conservatism rule the body politic and church and State collude. Designated outcasts by society and brutalised by terror, these women were cruelly estranged from an essential part of themselves. Forced to live sad and secret lives where, for them, their young babies never grew old, they experienced a form of social death.
Immediate action is now required in order to uncover the full truth. Foremost in our thoughts should be the surviving mothers, who endured what was effectively incarceration in the institutions, and also the surviving adopted children who wish to discover the truth about the identity of their parents, siblings and wider families.
One of the shocking aspects of mother and baby homes that requires answers is the use of children for medical experiments. Vaccination trials were carried out on 58 children in 1960 and 1961. Those children were from the mother and baby homes at Bessborough in County Cork, Castlepollard in County Westmeath, Mount Carmel Industrial School in Moate, County Westmeath, Dunboyne and Stamullen in County Meath and St. Patrick's on the Navan Road in Dublin.
That brings us to the question of why these crimes were perpetrated and why were they allowed to happen. There have been attempts to place the blame on wider Irish society dating back some time, and this has occurred again in recent days, because of the deeply conservative social attitudes that dominated in those decades. It should be acknowledged that the social attitudes of the times were disdainful of great numbers of people and cast them out of society. However, this can too easily be twisted into a view that since everyone was to blame, no one was to blame. In turn, this allows the powerful in Irish society to evade accountability and responsibility once again. The reality was that there were powerful social and economic forces. Powerful men of church and State ruled this society and ensured women, children, the poor and the marginalised were kept in their place, or what those same powerful men decided was their place.
Much has changed for the better but much has yet to change. The onus is now on the Government to act. I would urge the Government to include the Magdalen laundries, as a matter of course, in any commission of inquiry. I would also like to take this opportunity to raise the issue of direct provision and I know the Minister is aware of this. This issue must be discussed on another occasion because it must be addressed. The young women in mother and baby homes who were once so full of promise and life deserve justice. Their lives were shattered and the State and Irish society can no longer claim ignorance. It is time to act and to demolish the official wall of silence that the State itself played such an active part in constructing.