Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Then we are legislating for experience and we are making them relational. We have situations and then we have circumstances. Circumstances are many within the whole of a situation. What we are then saying is that this legislation is not about mother and baby homes or county homes but rather about situations. That situation is as long as a piece of string. In one sense, we are trying to locate it in a space and time within a building and a facility and the conditions of a county home. Then we are saying that it is anything in relation to that. That is a very wide definition. What happened before that? Is the fact that maybe a person's parents were poor now something that cannot be talked about because that is part of the circumstance that led the person there? Circumstances are reaching out all over the place. We have to be able to name things. Within the Bill we do not recognise those other things that happened in the maternity hospital piece. We are saying that by virtue of the fact that a person was going into the county home they were then brought over to the maternity services and they are all part of the one situation. Then we are regulating for a situation and we are saying that everybody's physical and psychological experiences stemmed from that, from one circumstance to another; well then it does not really make sense anymore. There are reasons a person may end up in a mother and baby home. It could be that the person got pregnant when they were 15. Is that person now not allowed to talk about being pregnant at age 15 because that is part of the situation, part of the circumstances? We are saying that we cannot talk about the circumstances that led to the trauma. Perhaps there was racist abuse.The circumstances that would be covered in a waiver is that we did not receive pain medication or free care under the mental health services, because they are all part of the same circumstance. That does not leave anyone with anything, because the circumstances are bigger than we are recognising in the legislation. If we are saying we are legislating for people who spent time in the county home, were boarded in the county home, we cannot say by extension that their experience in another building with another facility on the same site is different. We are saying that is not the county home. If you go to the maternity hospital and spend four weeks there because you had a really bad labour, you never make it to the county home. However, you experience exactly what those in the county home have experienced, without ever going there. We are not recognising that because the records show you were never in the county home. We are saying we do not recognise any of the circumstances that happened, even if they were the same apart from where you lay your head at night, or had to work in the morning. We are saying we do not recognise that within the legislation. Why can we recognise everything else that has happened to the other women there, because we are saying that is not the county home? If you experience a refusal of medical care or anything like that in the hospital, it cannot just be attached to your experience because we are not attaching everyone else's experience to that? Does the Minister know what I mean? I am talking about your circumstances and situation in place and space. You are in the mother and baby home, and experience whatever happens under that roof. If the Minister wants to make an argument for that waiver, that is okay. We can go back and forth on that. I am not saying it is okay, I do not believe in waivers, but I am saying he can tease that out. We cannot then say that waiver applies to a facility where other things happened, but which facility is not going to be recognised unless someone spent at least one night in this other place. We cannot say we recognise the other facility maternity services, but we do not recognise them for this purpose. We either recognise them as part of the situation, or we do not, if that makes sense.