Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I note that the pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline, which still operates in Ireland, has declined to apologise for its vaccine trials in mother and baby homes between the 1930s and 1970s, despite the company's own documents showing it conducted seven trials at homes during these four decades. It is unacceptable that the scheme does not provide redress for the medical abuse of persons subject to illegal vaccine trials. It is baffling. We have discussed this. I acknowledge Senator Boyhan, who has personal experience of these issues and who has spoken extensively around the impact of the illegal vaccine trials. We have yet to see meaningful action and steps to compel GlaxoSmithKline or other pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the scheme or, as the Minister will recall from an amendment we discussed yesterday, to set up an additional fund which would allow for further payments. It is important to remember, when we talk about institutional abuse, that this institutional abuse is not an anomaly or an exception. The abuse and the institutionalisation of whole categories of members of Irish society - women and children - was systemic and an act of choice. Such abuse was a decision we still see echoed down the line today, to ensure women who were having children out of wedlock were treated differently and discriminated against and their children were less valued, less well-treated and protected and were subject to lesser outcomes.

Tomorrow, I will launch a report for One Family to look at some of the systemic inequalities and the fact the deprivation levels of one-parent families in the State are still far higher than those within other families. We have seen this even in something as simple as the jobseeker transitional payment, which ends when the child reaches the age of 14. Children in this State have less care and are less entitled after that period. Their parents are placed under harsher conditions with regard to social protection. There has been a long litany, right through the years, of failing mothers and babies in Ireland who are not within marriage, and it has been very profitable. It is not simply systemic and due to anomalies or a bad health practice but has been systemic and profitable. In fact, women and babies have been treated as a resource for commercial companies. We saw that in the mother and baby homes, commercial companies were able to use these children without proper consent for vaccine trials to develop products for commercial gain. Again, those who ran these institutions were, in some cases, able to directly profit from facilitating such abusive practices. So money is right there in the mix of how these institutions were run and what the relationships were between the State, the congregations, the orders and commercial actors such as large pharma companies. It is really important that measures taken reflect not just regret or generalised apologies but show proper redress through this scheme, or an additional scheme. Also, we must ensure that all those who engaged in a process of profiteering and exploitation, based on vulnerable children, are required to make contributions and reparations in respect of this.

The Minister knows we discussed the idea of an additional scheme because yesterday, we discussed the idea of having a top-up scheme if he does not want this scheme. This particular report would look to the idea of the potential for additional payments. Again, this is one where there are quite good records on these trials. I do not believe that this would have to be an adversarial approach. I think that the Minister could literally look at the records that exist on who we know were subjected to these trials and have an automatic increased or additional payment in respect of that. Indeed, we should have harder measures in terms of a requirement or a levy on the relevant companies and require them to contribute.

Again, we have heard about the appointment of new negotiators to engage with the congregations and the religious orders. It would be good to have clarity on what the State, taking a harder line in respect of the pharma companies, is going to look like and when we are going to see it. I hope that the Minister might consider and accept the amendment.