Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not repeat everything Senator Higgins said. I support both of these amendments, and I am the co-signatory to amendment No. 39. I want to push on that point about mixed-race children and their experience, and return to this particular group which represents mixed-race children who are now adults. I am thinking of Mr. Bryan in particular, who has come to see me and others in Leinster House, and shared his personal journey and experience. We know that many of these children were moved in and out of care. Sometimes, to the best ability of the mother usually, but not always, they were taken back of out of care for short periods of stay. I can think of one who I grew up with, who is particularly famous in Irish society today. I refer to that constant moving in and out of care because of certain situations and their family community which could not accept the circumstances around their case and their family's history. It breaks the cycle. I think of children who were moved, and families who were forced again by institutions to take their children of mixed race out of the Irish jurisdiction. Some of them went to Liverpool. That was not a choice. I have seen correspondence to this effect, where organs of the State encouraged, paid for and facilitated the transfer of mixed-race children in the 1960s and 1970s outside the State. Where is the redress for them? It is a very real concern. We talk about diversity, tolerance and respect for difference, and somehow many of these children had to grow up in very difficult circumstances where they were constantly moved in and out of care and in and out of contact with their parents. On top of all that, as they got older, they had the experience of racism and bullying, which were prevalent particularly in the 1960s with regard to mixed-race children and which added to the complexities of their life experience.

Somehow we have to address that. I do not know where we can address it. I know the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, is familiar with the issues around all of this and is supportive of doing something with regard to assisting them. However, for those people listening in today, of which I know there are some, what can the Minister say to them? What is the plan and how can we genuinely, in terms of our parliamentary democracy, send a clear message that we are including them, have considered them and recognise there was a hurt, an injustice and a need?

Again, it goes back to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It was one thing to read the report from the Library and Research Service but then another to read the transcripts. I have read every word of all the transcripts from that committee and I do not doubt for one minute the absolute commitment of the committee, collectively and individually. Somehow, that is not coming through, or has not come through, including many of these issues which were touched on as part of the deliberations and the work of that committee. That is something which we are all going to have to square up to at some point. We are all going to have to explain why, somehow, the disconnect with the empathy and commitment to rectify the injustices and to put in place legislation was all great down in the committee rooms in the cellars of Leinster House but has not filtered through the parliamentary process and, ultimately, up through Government to form part of this Bill. That is a recurring theme throughout all of this legislation.

I would be interested in a response from the Minister with regard to amendment No. 40. I fully support both amendments Nos. 39 and 40.