Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Arising from the remarks which have just been made about the commission in relation to mother and baby homes, I would like to put a few things on the record as my personal opinion on the matter. Firstly, I have had the privilege of reading the letter sent in by the three commissioners in response to the Oireachtas committee's invitation to appear before it. I found that the letter was respectful. It was clear. It set out precisely why, on the basis of the legislative basis for commissions of investigation and the requirement that persons who participate as commissioners in such processes be seen to be independent, the framework envisages the commissioners doing their best to come up with a clear, unequivocal and objective view of the matter and putting that in to the Minister for publication by the Minister.

One of the points the commissioners made - it is one I mention without any degree of recrimination - is that the terms of reference of this commission, as have been mentioned, were ones which were objected to at the very start. The commissioners made the point that a good deal of their critics were the people who now say that the report should be rejected on the basis that it did not conform to the terms of reference they would have liked. I want to put it on the record of this House in defence of the commissioners that under the constitutional jurisprudence which applies to tribunals of inquiry of any kind, there has to be constitutional due process. The idea of the confidential committee was always to be one where a general report would be developed based on what people, who wanted to have their input, gave to the confidential committee report process as their particular experience but, and this is the point, they were given and many of them availed of a guarantee of confidentiality. That is the first thing. Secondly, and more importantly than that, they were given the privilege of having input into what would be a general report on their particular experiences without any obligation to be cross-examined or challenged or to stand up their events. Their version was taken as it was given. That, as a matter of law, is fine as long as a commission hearing does not proceed to say there was no other side to this matter, there was no other case to be made, there was no cross-examination to take place and the commission is taking it as absolute gospel.

I want to put it on the record that the Government is perfectly entitled to get in a third party to look at it from a human rights point of view, if that is what the Government proposes. I took the trouble of ordering the printed version of this from the Department. It is 3,000 pages of substantial work. The commissioners have not got fair or adequate acknowledgement of the massive amount of work they did to uncover a huge scandal in the way Ireland dealt with its most vulnerable people in the past.