Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

While I understand the spirit in which this amendment has been brought, I am not in a position to accept it. Counselling provisions, as currently drafted within the legislation, allow for the broad spectrum of counselling support to be provided as required and requested by a person, and also allow for more urgent cases to be prioritised. As I flagged on Committee Stage, the National Counselling Service separately provides services to survivors of mother and baby and county home institutions as a priority group and, additionally, my Department has allocated significant additional resources to both Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland for fulfilling their obligations under this legislation, including the provision of counselling support. Tusla already has a positive and successful relationship with Barnardos to provide counselling to persons to whom this legislation is relevant. The experience is there and preparations are already under way to ensure services will be ready on enactment. In addition, the ministerial guidelines will include an appendix on the spectrum of counselling and supports available to the different cohorts of people affected by this legislation.

Counselling for relevant people is provided for under this legislation but even in advance of this legislation being enacted, there is a counselling service available right now for anybody who was in a mother and baby or county home institution, the National Counselling Service. It is a service that is free of charge and survivors of these institutions are prioritised in terms of receiving the counselling. I ask all Senators to continue to amplify that message because it is important that people who were in institutions understand there is that support available to them right now, even in advance of this Bill being passed.

I cannot accept amendment No. 45 as I believe it is already provided for in this legislation. The provision of counselling services under section 69 will form part of the review of the legislation provided for under section 70. Section 70 provides for a review to be commenced by two years post-enactment and all sections, other than Parts 8 and 9, fall within the scope of that process. I brought in amendments in Dáil Éireann based on commitments made on Committee Stage to reduce the timeframe for this review from four years to two years, and it was agreed by all parties at that time that two years was an acceptable time to allow for a meaningful review to take place. We have to allow the legislation to operate for a period of time so we can detect if there are issues or problems which can then be solved. Two years gives us that good balance between giving it a two-year period to operate but also making sure we are responding quickly to any problems that will emerge.

In our next discussion today, I am bringing forward an amendment that will provide more detail on section 70, including that the report done on the legislation will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. I hope this will address the Senators’ amendment in this regard.