Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to these new amendments tabled by the Minister. I had to step out for a minute to meet three families who are here for this legislation. I reiterate there is now uncertainty. Senator Gavan talked about the issues around Castlepollard. This relates to Schedule 1, Part 2 and the three sections concerning reference number, name of institution and concluding year. There is now a query around the Westmeath home in Castlepollard. I also query St. Kevin's institution, which was initially the Dublin Union, as I said, which is clearly way outside the provision in the Bill as it dates from 1935. All the complexities of that co-located hospital maternity unit have been outlined.

However, as I said, we now know factually that many of the people who came from these institutions and county homes were brought there, had a baby, and 24 hours later were brought back to the institutions. We also know that the children of parents who were married were in these institutions, for whom the State made orders that those parents were not allowed to have their children back. We also know that children from there were sent to mother and baby homes in Monkstown, Dún Laoghaire and Blackrock, and two such homes in Navan. That is all there and can be validated. The point is the parents were married. They were not unmarried mothers. Some of them chose to stay together, some of them grew apart but could not separate for economic reasons. In many cases, the State contested these situations. The archive records of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was run in our name and had a mandate, a job and was given State aid, indicate it too made written reports suggesting that the separation of children was in their best interests, given the time and different sets of circumstances we know nothing of.

Given the doubt around this, is it not better to leave this section out, or certainly the reference to the concluding years? I am now somewhat concerned. I also mentioned Miss Carr's Flatlets as another relevant place. There is still another property, 5 Leeson Park, on the same road as Miss Carr's Flatlets. Leeson Park is not mentioned in the Bill but I know it to be there. I visited both those locations yesterday to validate their existence. They are still in existence and are still operating. Given there are now a few queries around it, we have to operate on the cautionary principle and say we are not 100% sure on them.As I referenced earlier, the Minister said that if there were changes, we could bring them in and I think we could bring them in pretty rapidly. I am not sure about this. Why change it? The Minister did not initially propose this. He did not flag this in the Dáil when discussing the amendments at that stage. I acknowledge he has taken on board other issues and other information may have come to light or come to his attention. There is just that bit of uncertainty now which makes me feel there may be a bit more exploring to be done here in regard to these issues.