David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and it is my honour to second the amendment tabled by Senator Power.

The Minister began by acknowledging the Irish women and children who were in mother and baby homes in this country, but only some and not all of them. Why not go the whole hog now, instead of endlessly having to revisit this issue? Over the last few years I have raised a number of homes, particularly Protestant homes, which have been excluded. We have grudgingly had an acceptance of this, bit by bit over time. The Minister says that as a result of the commission of investigation we will reach a greater understanding "of how we as a society failed in our treatment of vulnerable women and children". Why continue to fail some of those vulnerable women and children? The Minister said we do not shy away from our past. That is splendid, so let us not shy away from it.

I am glad a selection of county homes is being included. The Minister referred to the extent to which any group of residents may have systematically been treated differently on any grounds, including race, disability and religion. He knows perfectly well that under this Government groups of people have been treated differently on the basis of their religion. In the beginning it was a nakedly sectarian thing. It was almost as if only Roman Catholic institutions were capable of mistreating women and children. We know now that some of the Protestant institutions were in a similar situation, although not so directly associated with the church as they were often voluntary in nature.

I welcome that the commission will examine the question of the consent of mothers and that it may extend its frame of reference. I very much approve of the three person commission. The Minister has found three excellent people, Judge Yvonne Murphy, Professor Mary Daly and Dr. William Duncan. These are outstanding people and I am sure they will do a good job. I expect that they will be prepared to enlarge the sample being examined.

The amendment is important because it includes ten named homes which previously had been excluded. It is important to bear this mind. It also gives a voice to people. It means that any resident of any county home would be entitled to be heard. The entitlement to be heard is a very important right.

This is what many people want. It notes with concern the experience of between 60% to 70%, that is 50,000 to 62,000, whose children were forcibly or illegally adopted. That was really an obscenity in which society and the church colluded. For those reasons I am very happy to support the amendment.

In particular I would like to deal with one home, Westbank, which is the latest to be included. It was an institution run under the auspices of the Protestant orphanage charity, which was registered with the Government as a charity and therefore availed of tax benefits. So there is a clear link between the State and this institution even though it was a fairly fundamentalist Protestant one run at the inspiration of one particular person, Miss Adeline Mathers from Portadown.

She ran this institution as a kind of personal medieval fiefdom. All the children were registered with her name. They were allowed no separate surnames. They were all registered as Mathers and so were deprived of their identity. The roll book in St. Patrick's national school in Greystones confirms this; they never knew who they were. As they have said, their identity was stolen from them. They have official documents showing that social services were aware of them and official documentation that proves that boarding-out inspectors were aware of Westbank in the 1950s. On some occasions children were beaten so badly that local medical representation had to be called in. It seems astonishing that this particular institution, Westbank, should be excluded from the terms of reference.

The Minister has referred to exit pathways. I have been asked to raise this issue on behalf of some of the people who were in these Protestant homes. The terms of reference mention exit pathways from mother and baby homes. It is not clear if such pathways will lead up the entrance path of similarly dysfunctional institutions to which abandoned children were sent. For example, some were sent from Bethany Home to the Westbank orphanage in Wicklow which had the same Protestant ethos as Bethany Home. With great difficulty we have got Bethany Home included in the scheme, but it is certainly not clear if institutions such as Westbank will be included.

I welcome some of the measures the Minister has introduced, but it is part of a piecemeal approach. Some people are still left out of the solution. Once and for all we should deal with the situation in a comprehensive manner, ensuring nobody is left out so that the words of the Minister when he talks about not shying away, learning from people and acknowledging the dreadful way these people were committed, will no longer sound hollow because we will have included everyone.