Ms Catherine McGuinness:

I thank Senators for their great interest in what I have said and their interesting questions, although it makes me nervous. If I was able to answer all of their questions, I might be the Archangel Gabriel. The questions ranged from reconstructing the entire system of the Oireachtas to solving the child care question and so on. I am delighted to see that Senators have not lost the old tendency to overrun the bell, as we always did. It is a tradition of the House. It would take a long time to answer all of the questions and matters raised, but perhaps I might stick to the ones that seemed outstanding.
I was interested in the first contribution made by Senator Hildegarde Naughton on the causes of the attitudes that appeared. Fr. Vincent Twomey is not a writer with whom I always agree, as people will understand, but he wrote an interesting article in today's edition of The Irish Timeson puritan attitudes in the Victorian era when to be respectable was all. Perhaps this might explain a certain amount as to why things happened. Unfortunately, it seemed to fit in with the Jansenist attitude of the Catholic Church in that period. To be fair, there was much the same attitude in the Protestant churches. I well remember not just Bethany Home but also other homes, for example, the Bird's Nest in Dún Laoghaire, and there was exactly the same attitude. Protestants, possibly, had even more of a desire to be respectable because of their minority position in the population. They did not want to let the side down, as it were. These things happened right across the board, but I cannot give a real explanation. When we started as a new country in the 1920s and 1930s, to some extent there was a feeling that it was a new wholly Catholic Ireland with an Irish-speaking people. The attitude played into that aspiration. However, I am anxious not to be too condemnatory of parents in that situation, as it was difficult.
As a child in primary school, I remember growing up in Belfast. My example will remind Senators of this year's D-Day anniversary. A series of soldiers were planted in our community and put in people's houses. We had British soldiers, white and black Americans, Poles, Belgians and a number of others, with the inevitable result of quite a number of children, many of whom were kept in the community and I know them to this day. Perhaps it was easier to keep them in what was a working class community, which is what my father's parish was like, in which there was less of a feeling that people needed to be respectable all of the time in the middle of a war. It was more important to survive than it was to be respectable. The children were taken in and brought up, generally by the grandmothers. If one examines different cultures, one may find different answers. Perhaps we should not be too condemnatory. I would be all for looking for the beam in our own eyes rather than the speck in the eyes of others.
To respond to Senator Terry Leyden's comments, of course, I appreciate the background work for much of what happened under the Ministry of Deputy Frances Fitzgerald was conducted by the previous Ministers of State with responsibility for children. The late Deputy Brian Lenihan was a personal friend of mine because he practised at the Bar and I knew him as a barrister. With Mr. Barry Andrews, formerly my local Deputy, he did good work in the area of children and not for one moment would I try to do away with the tributes that should be paid to them.
The adoption of illegitimate children is a real issue. I am most anxious that the legal controversy over the children's rights referendum should end. As it is obviously not proper for me to comment on my former colleagues and the way in which the legal case is going, I will not do so, but I hope it will come to an end.
Some fathers just walked away but others were driven away. This issue was drawn to my attention yesterday when I was speaking to a neighbour who described his experiences growing up in Bray, County Wicklow, and how a fair few fathers had been run off. Perhaps they were not all entirely to blame.
Turning to Senator Ivana Bacik's comments, regardless of whether one agrees with bits of Fr. Twomey's article, it is interesting.

There were schemes through which girls were allowed to live in private accommodation. For example, through the Ally scheme, which was established by the Dominican priest Fr. Fergal O'Connor young expectant mothers were placed in private families, in return for which they acted as childminders of children within that family. I agree on the importance of knowing one's identity. The late Judge Rory O'Hanlon, in a judgment in the 1980s, stressed the absolute right of children to know their identity. Since then, it has become a most important thing.

Several Senators raised the question of what we should do about children in direct provision. The simple answer is that we should abolish that system. I refer Senators to the report of the Irish Refugee Council on the matter. It would take too long for me to go into detail on what is contained in that report but it does provide a possible way forward. One of the main solutions is a reduction in the amount of time people spend in direct provision. To be fair to the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, he did make more of an effort in that regard than did many of his predecessors. Based on my personal interaction with him I believe he had a more compassionate attitude to asylum seekers and refugees than did many other Ministers and people in authority generally.