Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As we all know, the State and the church are responsible, and must be accountable, for the mother and baby homes and county homes spoken about in this report and beyond it. I join in the rejection of any attempts to minimise that. It is simply not credible or acceptable for the commission to claim there is no evidence that women were forced to enter mother and baby homes due to the church or State authorities. A few pages after that claim in the report we hear of bishops saying the only thing that prevents women from leaving is the strict supervision and boundary walls. Women themselves have told us about incarceration and escape.

To describe the awful tone and skewed framing by the commission as overly legalistic is to give it too much credit. It is not legalistic; it is defensive. It amounts to more walls corralling survivors into the confidential committee, squeezing their testimony into unseen questionnaires and denying requests for public hearings, even though the statutory instrument which established the commission stated that individuals should be able to request privacy and not have secrecy forced upon them.

That statutory instrument was from 2015, one year after the public duty relating to human rights and equality came into law. The report tells us that the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission asked for any investigation to be informed by human rights law, but the Government did not opt for that approach in its mandate to the commission. This raises very serious questions. The sidelining of human rights really does show.

This report is not the new chapter that we needed. Yet, I hope it will be the last we hear of the old excuses. A radically different approach has to begin now. It must be led by the voices, needs, demands and well-being of survivors. It must offer support, redress and justice not only for those who endured the 18 institutions in the report but also for the many others affected by a wider systemic architecture of control and abuse right across the island. We heard again today that in Northern Ireland more of that architecture of control and abuse was targeted at women and their lives.

I welcome that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth took the advice of those of us in this House and many others by keeping a copy of all of the files. It is vital that they reach the Minister in unredacted form and that the commission respects the general data protection regulation when preparing for the transfer.As was vigorously pointed out in this House by human rights and data protection experts and, crucially, by survivors themselves, when the Minister receives these files he will become a data controller with a responsibility to respond to individuals' requests for their personal information under Article 15 of the regulation. It was a relief to see his Department's belated acceptance and acknowledgement of that fact. I am glad the Minister personally seems keen to take an open and empowering approach to such requests. It is vital that bodies such as Tusla also change their responses and approaches to reflect the new-found understanding of the general data protection regulation, GDPR. The centring of an individual's right of access to personal information will, I hope, result in a very different approach in the information and tracing legislation the Minister is to bring forward later this year. I look forward to engaging with the Minister on that. We should not have to wait that long for progress on birth certificates.

As data controller, the Minister may also identify and facilitate other appropriate processing of information from these files in the public interest. That may, and probably should, include further investigations into the vaccine trials, financial exploitation and forced and illegal adoptions. It is clearly evidenced in the testimony of the women in other reporting by persons such as journalists for the Irish Examinerand elsewhere, and in the fact that other records have been shown to be falsified, that there was an issue with regard to forced and illegal adoptions. Indeed, there was extensive lobbying to avoid the introduction of proper legal oversight in respect of adoption. The report itself reflects that.

The apologies at national and local level are right and necessary but there are also issues of justice involved which cannot be forgotten. These include issues of financial justice, justice with regard to adoption and justice with regard to graves and infant death, not only in Tuam but in Bessborough and so many other places across the country. It is crucial that no individual be asked to give up his or her legal rights as part of any redress scheme. Redress must be speedy, substantial and centred on the needs of survivors. It must learn from the mistakes of past schemes. There can be no waivers, no gagging orders and absolutely no indemnity for religious orders. These orders must make payment. We should also re-examine their exemption from capital gains tax in light of the amount of property we know has been disposed of and the fact that this property was so deeply rooted in this discrimination in Irish society.

I will finish as I know others wish to speak but there are wider lessons I ask the Minister to learn. When the State puts a payment on the heads of vulnerable people, as it still does with regard to direct provision and homelessness, it can be dangerous. When the State surrenders power to religious orders, as is currently planned for the national maternity hospital, it can be dangerous. I urge the Minister to work with all of us to build a state that takes responsibility for the past and for the future.