Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the guests to the House. I know some of them.

This amendment is especially important. I will speak to amendment No. 114 which was tabled by Sinn Féin. Themes have recurred throughout this Bill. This is an especially important aspect of it. Given the nature of the Bill, particular issues are in focus. The amendment suggests that "within six months of the passing of this Act, [the Minister shall] prepare and lay before Dáil Eireann a report on the operation of the Mother and Baby Institution Payments Scheme. A report under this section shall consider the following". Six months is tight and the Minister has made that point. The essence of this comes down to five or six key requests. They are important and they are recurring themes. The scope of inclusion in additional schedules is clear. The Minister has covered it off pretty well. Regarding "b) whether there is scope in the scheme for the inclusion of children and women who were subjected to non-consensual or illegal medical trials or experimentation", I have said this before because I have a lot of experience in this area. We know. There is no dispute anymore about the fact that pharmaceutical companies carried out drug trials in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s. They denied them all and eventually through investigations by Prime Time, RTÉ and good journalists, who I acknowledge today, we got to the bottom of the truth. There was loads of evidence. These trials were published in reports and ultimately we now know that no consent was given. There is no evidence of consent being given. The adverse reaction has not been altogether documented but we know there have been some cases. Some brave doctors gave evidence about this matter. Deputy Micheál Martin was the Minister for Health when he set up three pilot investigations with Dr. Kiely . All of them indicated there were drug trials. We are beyond the area of knowing, knowledge or denial. We know they happened. Somehow the State does not want to acknowledge or deal with it in this Bill, but surely to God we will have to deal with it somewhere. It will not go away.

On the scope of the inclusion of mixed African race children, we know these children had to walk the streets and get out and about, and were bullied and intimidated. I do not want to say here again what was said to them, but it was painful, hurtful and damaging and somehow we do not seem to be able to cope with that. Then there is the issue of children who were nursed out or boarded out to homes. I have had many of those people as guests in Leinster House. I teased out some of the issues and their concerns. From the people who shared their experiences in my office, there is no doubt they were subject to mental, physical, emotional and sexual abuse; not all of them, but many. They have had to get on with their lives as best they can. They have been emotionally thwarted.They felt they could not develop emotionally therefore they could not develop educationally. What are we going to do for them? Then we finish up by talking about the children who were resident for fewer than 180 days. I do not want to keep repeating myself but at the end of the day, the Minister and all of us as Senators will have to step outside this House and somewhere we will have to explain to people why we have let them down. These are a few key asks. If they cannot be dealt with in this legislation, we need to say how we are going to deal with them. I have listened to many Deputies and Senators on the radio and in interviews talking about the shock and horror; they are Members of these Houses. We cannot sit idly by. This is our moment now. This is our opportunity and our chance to put something in the legislation. I accept we are running late and I am happy enough - as an advocate and someone who has lived in institutional care and who has experienced many of the issues that I have just touched on - that we have other vehicles, legislation, and redress schemes that run parallel to this. Let this get on with its work. Too many people are now too old. They want their redress. However, let us commit to addressing those issues in some other way. To say that they cannot be addressed here and have no alternative proposal is really not sustainable or fair. On the litigation, the only option left for these people is to go to the courts. They cannot afford to go to the courts. Many of these people are broken, tired and weary campaigning. They are weary of standing outside the gates of Leinster House and they had great expectation, because of the conversation by politicians, that something was going to happen.

I will finish by saying that there is a lot of good in this legislation. That is absolutely the case but there is so much more to include. Subsections (a) to (e), inclusive, of amendment No. 114, as set out by Sinn Féin Senators Warfield, Boylan, Ó Donnghaile and Gavan, could be worked in or included in this legislation, or alternatively could be run parallel to this legislation.