Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have huge sympathy for the case Senator Ruane makes. It is a very coherent argument, to be fair. We have evidence regarding people in that nursing or that maternity care aspect, that a single woman giving birth beside a married woman giving birth received very different treatment. The former was treated in an abominably different way. Empathy and respect was shown to the married woman but there was none shown to the single woman. There was cruelty, including the withholding of pain medication. In fact, there was deliberate infliction of harm. I do not see why we cannot accept the affidavits.In other areas, we are inviting an affidavit to cover periods of time where, for example, there are no records. I do not see why the same cannot be done in this context and we cannot accept affidavits to cover what happened in those nursing scenarios. The woman was a single woman. If we were to do a box-ticking exercise, many of the same boxes would be ticked as in the cases of those who fall within the definition of normal "relevant person". I do not see why the Minister cannot accept this measure's inclusion - we would be careful in the information that went out when people were invited to apply to the scheme - and why we cannot cover those situations, knowing them to be unique. There will be records and other elements will match up where the women with these experiences are concerned, allowing them to fall within the remit. We are not talking about an incalculable number of people and there will be circumstances that concur. This matter could be addressed without even tabling an amendment to the Minister's amendments.

I have a second point to make about the term "concluding year". I accept the issue raised by Senator Boyhan and I hear what the Minister is saying. Having flexibility in this regard is important, but the term "concluding year" is a little unfortunate. Bearing in mind how the Minister explained it, I ask that, in the information we put out, we are clear that this is a residency occurring or commencing in the year. If someone entered an institution in December 1963, that person would still be within that year for whatever the person's length of residency was. By wording this provision differently, we could ensure that it was not as finite and abrupt as it appears to be. This is a question of nuance and semantics more than anything else, but changing the wording can ensure that we not have the cut-off point that Senator Ruane referred to, with people believing they will not be covered. People assume that "concluding" means when they moved out. That is how I would read it. We can be careful in our terminology and instead say something like "residency occurring in or commencing up to the conclusion of" such and such a date, for example, 31 December 1963. In this way, we could ensure that there was not an abrupt end.