Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I reflect on this opportunity to speak here today on the mother and baby homes as an honour and a great responsibility. What the State, the country, the church and our people did to these women and babies was disgusting. It was wrong and I am ashamed that this is the story of our nation in terms of it treated women, girls and children. It is incredible that we, as a nation, we were so cruel to the most vulnerable. That we abused that vulnerability in ways that were so depraved should make us all completely ashamed. In terms of the numbers, the commission that was established under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004 has examined records for over 70,000 mothers and a greater number of children in 18 different institutions all across our country.

Between the years 1922 and 1998, women were subjected to forced labour, psychological or physical torture, ill-treatment, denial of education to children, sexual assault and many other forms of abuse. This is sometimes described as historical abuse but we cannot describe the 1990s, when the last laundry was shut, as historical. This is our modern Ireland - an Ireland that was, even in the 1990s, a member of the EU and the United Nations. This is our present and these women and the children who were interned in the mother and baby homes deserve respect, care, understanding, support, dignity and a break. They have been fighting for survival, to live, to be heard and for respect and they had to fight for an apology. This is not history, it is our citizens' present stories. They are not artefacts, they are people.

In the Magdalen laundries, girls as young as nine and women were locked away and forced into penal servitude for a wide variety of spurious reasons. The institutions solved a problem, one of avoiding shame on a society - the irony of this. Our people, our state, our church, our schools and everyone turned a blind eye, closed their doors, closed their minds to "that girl" who was in trouble or difficult to deal with. They were dealt with: they were put away.

To speak directly and specifically to the Bill, there has been much discussion about what it covers and the reason it is being fast-tracked. It deals with serious legal and practical issues raised by the commission in relation to finalising its records. In the absence of the important changes contained within this Bill, the commission would continue to be obliged to redact sensitive personal information before depositing its records.The commission was established under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004. Under the 2004 Act, investigations are held in private. That confidentiality applies to the evidence and records gathered by the inquiry.

Earlier this year, the commission informed the Department of Children and Youth Affairs that it had created a database tracking who was in the main mother and baby homes, but did not feel it had a legal basis to transfer that database and would be compelled by law to redact the valuable information contained within it. This Bill ensures that the records of the commission are deposited with the Minister or with the Child and Family Agency without redaction. Most significantly, the Bill provides for the transfer of specified databases and records relating to the former residents of the institutions being examined by the commission to Tusla.

The database contains information relating to the mothers and children who were resident in 11 of the 18 institutions being investigated by the commission. Into the future, a database of this nature, as discussed by the Minister, is undoubtedly required to support a statutory information and tracing service for individuals who resided in these institutions and have fundamental questions about their identity or their time in these institutions. The complex constitutional and legal issues which arise in this area would require further legislation. The Minister has stated that he is committed to separately advancing robust information and tracing legislation to provide an enhanced statutory framework for the release of birth and early life information and will have my full support in that.

We have received thousands of emails as I am sure the Minister has also. The sealing of documents which is not part of this Bill specifically has become the main talking point of this Bill. However, it is a very important matter and needs to be discussed here. The Minister's intentions regarding this 30-year sealing needs to be questioned. It is worth noting, and everyone must acknowledge, that the oral witness statements given to the commission will be printed without personal details in the report when it is published.

I understand that the 30-year rule cannot be amended in blanket fashion in the 2004 Act as it would change the legal framework and remit of other very important commissions of inquiry established under that Act. I also certainly know that this 30-year locking up of testimony is far too long for too many people. They do not have 30 years. They have had a lifetime of torment and if their lives will be helped or healed in any way whatsoever we must act. We must immediately set about doing a review on how these stories of the women in the database can be in a public record for those who wish it to be a public record. I fully understand that not all of the women want their names made public.

I spoke to Dr. Maeve O'Rourke from NUI Galway who is one of many tireless campaigners for these women and children and I hope that the Minister might consider three things. First, that a copy of the entire commission archive be kept in his Department. Second, that personal access requests to the archive are facilitated when his Department receives them. Third, that an appropriately anonymised index to the archive be published in a timely manner after his Department's receipt of it, so that debate and consultation can be facilitated on the further unsealing of the commission’s archive, and the future creation of a dedicated archive of historical abuse records, detailing what it might contain, and how and where it could be established.

This country needs to accept its horrendous past and face it head-on. It needs to establish a dedicated archive in Sean McDermott Street where we as a country can see the cruelty of what we did to the women and these precious little children that we neglected. We also need a monument to honour all of these lives, to honour their stories, to face the truth, and to respect our women and children.

I again urge the Minister to review my request concerning these amendments, if not in this Bill, then in the weeks and months ahead, because it is very important that these women who want their stories told and their lives made clear to us all and to our children are facilitated, so that our children will know what our State and our people did to these women. I fundamentally believe that these women deserve a break and the chance to have their stories told and deserve some sort of healing. If the Minister can give any sort of healing to these women at this stage I would greatly appreciate it.