Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following:

“4.The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following new section after section 6—

“Review of operation of Act

7.The Minister shall—

(a) not later than 3 months after the enactment of the Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions (Amendment) Act 2019, review relevant participants’ access to health and social care services in accordance with the Principal Act and any differences between the entitlements to services as compared with the entitlements to services of holders of a Health (Amendment) Act 1996 card, ensuring relevant participants’ involvement in the review,

(b) assess any difference in entitlement to services in the context of the first recommendation of the 2013 Magdalen Commission Report, and

(c) not later than 3 months after its commencement, make a report to each House of the Oireachtas of the findings made on the review and of the conclusions drawn from its findings.”.”.

I welcome the Bill and the Minister to the House. The scheme providing medical and social support to the Magdalen women is being expanded and more women will soon be able to avail of it. I welcome the amendment to the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act to ensure moneys received through the scheme are not included in a needs assessment for the supports. These are welcome measures but, unfortunately, they are inadequate and that is why amendments have been tabled today.

The Bill is short and mainly technical in nature. It represents part of the ongoing and never-ending work by the State that is required to support the cohort of women who survived the unimaginable experiences of the Magdalen laundries and the mistreatment in which the State was often complicit and for which we, as legislators, can never do enough to atone. However, we must continue to try.The scheme that we are discussing and the original 2015 legislation are part of the legislative enactment of the recommendations of the 2013 Magdalen commission report from Mr. Justice John Quirke. That report recommended the terms of an ex gratiarestorative justice scheme for Magdalen survivors and the recommendations were accepted by the then Government in full. A key recommendation made by Mr. Justice Quirke was the entitlement of the women to a Health (Amendment) Act or HAA card, not the standard medical card. This specific card was created in 1996 for those who contracted hepatitis C through State blood products. This specific and clear recommendation was first made in Mr. Justice Quirke's report and is a key part of the package of supports, which is broad, diverse and of a high standard, and is entirely justifiable in the context of the experiences of these women. However, the scheme available to the Magdalen women contains a number of restrictions on their medical and social care that are not limited to holders of the HAA card, the standard to which Mr. Justice Quirke specifically recommended that they be entitled. These include restrictions on dental and oral services as well as counselling and access to psychotherapy for family members, and a range of complementary therapy such as reflexology, acupuncture and hydrotherapy. These are exactly the kinds of services that Mr. Justice Quirke envisaged would be available to the women as part of this scheme, yet they are not able to access them. This is why I have tabled my amendment.

The Quirke report represents the contract made between the State and these women as part of the attempt to provide some form of reparation for their experiences. The women signed away their ability to take cases against the State on the understanding that the Quirke recommendations would be implemented in full. The fact that the State is withholding some of what was promised to these women is wholly unacceptable. I will not dwell on the indefensibility of this but it has to end.

The Minister knows that the Opposition is unable to introduce amendments that would impose a cost on the State. While I would have preferred an approach similar to that taken by Sinn Féin in amendment No. 1, that amendment was ruled out of order. The Seanad cannot, therefore, expand the scheme to include the kinds of therapies and treatments that we are talking about. That option would be entirely open to the Minister in the Dáil, however, and I urge him to take it. A Sinn Féin amendment that would have this desired effect has already been written. As we cannot control that process, we have tabled this amendment. It would require the Minister for Justice and Equality to review the health and social care supports available to the Magdalen women under this Act and to compare their entitlements with services available to those who hold a card entitling them to services under the Health (Amendment) Act 1996. Mr. Justice Quirke recommended that that card, which was specifically introduced for those who contracted hepatitis C, be made available to the Magdalen women and that relevant participants, namely, the Magdalen women themselves, be consulted in this review. The results of the review and the comparison would then be assessed in light of the first recommendation of the 2013 Magdalen report by Mr. Justice Quirke. This is the recommendation that specifically provides that Magdalen women should be entitled to this higher, broader set of benefits with the HAA card. The results of this process and the conclusions drawn from it were to be delivered to the Houses of the Oireachtas within six months.

This is not the course of action that I would have chosen first. I would prefer to introduce the Sinn Féin amendment to provide that these urgent changes would be made for the women affected or, better still, that the Minister would introduce them on behalf of the Government. In light of the constraints placed on us by Standing Orders, this is the option we have chosen. We cannot force the Minister's hand but we can require his Department to look at the inequality that exists between the HAA card's entitlements and those available to the Magdalen women. It should look at the inequality in the context of the exact recommendation from the Quirke report, which states that the inequality should not exist and that the Magdalen women should be entitled to the higher standard of care and services. We can require that the result of this process be delivered to the House within six months. I hope that being legislatively mandated to look at this issue through the lens that I have set out in this amendment would cause the Minister to move to make the legislative changes required to fully enact the Quirke report. We are talking about women who should be enjoying their lives with the full support of the State. They should not have to email Deputies and Senators to ask for what they were promised by the State and Government. I thank the Minister and look forward to his response.