Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister back to the Chamber. I welcome those present in the Gallery for this important debate. I acknowledge that the issues we are debating relating to the second interim report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes are closely related to the issues we debated earlier on the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill. Both relate to Ireland's shameful history of treatment of women and children. Both relate to our history of confinement and concealment of births outside of marriage. Both relate to the appalling stigma that the State allowed to encapsulate or enshroud women and children for so many decades of our history, right up to the recent past in the 1990s. It is important to have the two debates together.

I acknowledge the work of the local historian, Catherine Corless, whose painstaking work in unearthing the horrific reality of the Tuam mother and baby home gave rise to the establishment of the commission in 2015. Her work in taking out the death certificates of each of the 796 children who had died at the Tuam mother and baby home gave rise to the commission and to such immense public outcry about the scandal of Tuam.

The three-person commission is chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy and includes Professor Mary Daly and Dr. William Duncan. I pay tribute to their immense work and expertise. I know Dr. William Duncan personally. He taught me family law and he has taught many generations of students at Trinity. He has unparalleled expertise on family and adoption law. Indeed, I quoted him earlier during the debate on the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill. Professor Mary Daly's historical expertise is singularly important. Judge Yvonne Murphy had done a great deal of work previously on unearthing scandals around institutional abuse in Ireland. She has unparalleled expertise. The commission is doing valuable work.

I wish to deal with the recommendations in the interim report. First, I acknowledge the scope of the work undertaken within the current terms of reference. The terms of reference include the 14 so-called mother and baby homes as well the four county homes. I note Senator Boyhan's comment in this regard. The report refers to 70,000 women and more children having gone through those homes and institutions. It is a vast amount of work. The first interim report was produced in July 2016. At that point, more than 500 people had expressed an interest in engaging with the confidential committee. The commission hopes to engage in a comprehensive historical analysis covering the decades from 1922 to 1998. This is an enormous body of work that will do immense service to the State when we see the final report published in February 2018.

I wish to turn to the issues addressed in the second interim report. There are three discrete and contained issues. The first relates to children who were unaccompanied in these homes. The commissions says it understands a substantial number of children were resident in these institutions without their mothers. The commission is dealing with the exclusion of these children from the residential institutions redress scheme. The commission makes a compelling case for the inclusion of these children in the redress case. It makes the clear point that one of the institutions covered by the Act relating to the redress scheme, St. Patrick's on the Navan Road, is also under investigation by the commission as a mother and baby home. The commission maintains it is simply not logical to include St. Patrick's in the redress scheme but not other institutions under the scheme where they relate to unaccompanied children. The children who were resident in those homes without their mothers are clearly in the same position as the children who were included in the redress scheme.

The commission has referred back to the debates in the Dáil and Seanad at the time of the establishment of the redress scheme. It has made that point that the Minister said at the time that inclusion in the scheme did not imply that a complaint of abuse or a finding of abuse had been made.

In the light of the clear and logical finding of the commission it was disappointing to see the Government decision to exclude these people from redress. These people are adults now and some are of advanced age. This must be revisited. Others have pointed this out as well. At the least, it must be revisited when the final report of the commission is made in 2018. As the commission has clearly said, inclusion in the redress scheme did not imply a complaint of abuse.

I am speaking on my experience and I acknowledge my experience in this matter as a barrister who has represented many survivors of abuse before the redress board and as someone who has been critical of many aspects of the board.It is important to say that it does not necessarily have to be the same redress scheme. To exclude these survivors from a redress scheme seems illogical and, as the commission said, unjust. The Minister's speech and the Government's official response to the report in April and published online refer to the costs of previous redress schemes. The Comptroller and Auditor General has pointed out that the cost of the residential institutions redress scheme was €1.25 billion compared with the originally forecasted cost of €250 million. I have said, as has Senator Alice-Mary Higgins, that part of that cost must be laid at the doors of the religious orders and the Government of the day. In the dying days of the Government in 2002, the former Minister, Michael Woods, pushed the scheme through the Dail without, it seems, sufficient advice from the Attorney General. This enabled an indemnity scheme for the religious orders which should have been paying far more of the final costs of that scheme. Instead they saw an indemnity given to them by the State. That issue must be revisited by any redress scheme and it would have an implication in respect of cost to the State. Even if one is looking in practical terms at the costs to the State as a reason, one cannot simply refer back to the costs of previous redress schemes as a reason for excluding survivors from a redress scheme who should, logically and justly, be included. The commission makes a very clear case for that. All Members have spoken very strongly on the need to revisit this decision to exclude survivors from redress.

The recommendations are less conclusive on the other points made by the commission on including other institutions. On including other institutions within their own remit, the commission makes the point that while 160 institutions have been argued for inclusion, some have already been investigated by the Ryan report and others, but it says there are about 70 institutions that have not been under investigation or are not now by this commission. Many of these are private nursing homes. Currently, the commission does not make a strong case for including these in the remit. It does say, however, that there is a clear criterion that should be used for the inclusion of institutions such as these. The commission says "There is really only one question to be asked in respect of eligibility [for inclusion] - did a public body have a regulatory or inspection function in respect of that institution?" That is a hugely important recommendation by the commission. That is what should determine inclusion in State commissions of investigation and redress schemes.

It is also chilling to see the quote the commission gave from a 1927 State-run commission. The report of the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor referred to the existence to some of private maternity homes that were catering for women who had had children outside of marriage. The commission drew attention to different evils, particularly the connivance by the management of these homes in the secret disposal of children to unsuitable foster parents and the consequent high death rate among the children. We see this as a recent revelation-----