Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There has been much talk today about the rights of a child to know about his or her parentage and historical background, and I support all of that. I am coming to this debate as somebody who grew up in Galway in the 1960s and the 1970s. No young girl got pregnant in my time in Galway. Many young girls went away on holidays and came back nine months later without a child, however.

I had personal experience of this. It involved someone I know and who is dear to me. We knew she was pregnant and we believed she went to a family to be looked after during her pregnancy. When all of this started, we heard about Bessborough and of women being confined in a home. We heard of the trauma this woman went through. She was not a woman but a child at the time she was pregnant. I mention the trauma she went through and goes through every day of her life, remembering what happened to her. She is only one of the victims.

I agree with tracing. I will mention the story of a girl who sought to find her mother. When she found her mother, they met in a café in Dublin. Her mother explained the circumstances behind the pregnancy and the delivery of her daughter. She then told the girl that, now that she knew all she needed to know, she never wanted to see her again. Can Members imagine the devastation this caused in both their lives or even think for a moment about what is going on here?

The 4,000 or so emails Senators have received in recent days are heartbreaking. They are from people who want to know more but there were also a couple of hundred emails from people who do not want anything to be known about their previous lives. These are women who delivered children and had their hearts broken to have their children taken off them. They did not willingly give them up but they were taken off them and these women were then sent back to wherever they came from. They have lived with that for all of their lives. Some of them went on to get married and have families. They hold this secret deep within their minds and hearts and they live every day with that. We are about to blow all of that wide open and we have to think about what we are doing. The right to trace one's parentage is vital, the right of the child who was the mother because, God damn it, no man ever came forward and admitted to fathering one of these children. We hid away in the background and let the girls take the full brunt of societal condemnation.I cannot express how distressed by this I am. I had many dear friends who were pregnant in the 1960s and 1970s who disappeared from Galway and came back nine months later. Nobody ever asked where they were; we all knew. Nobody ever spoke about it; it was buried. Nobody ever questioned what happened to the poor, unfortunate child who was born. As my colleague, Senator McDowell, noted, the women who went into the commission did so on the basis that what they said was between them and those they were giving witness to. I do not know where this will lead us, but it is leading us somewhere where we need to be very careful.

The Bill is being rushed through the House in two days, even though we were promised this would stop. Democracy demands that legislation be scrutinised. This is not scrutiny of legislation. The Government has the numbers on its side of the House to ram through anything it wants, and that is not fair. It is not fair on the Government and it is not fair on us.

I am absolutely appalled that the Minister allowed section 6 to end up in the Bill. Personal injuries have absolutely nothing to do with the matter, so why are they included in the Bill? This is heartbreaking enough as it is.