Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak to amendment No. 44. It is the only Sinn Féin amendment that has been allowed to be discussed today, at this final opportunity to discuss this Bill. I wish to read the amendment into the record, so that those watching at home can understand our position. It proposes that:

In page 35, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following: “(4) The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the operation of the Mother and Baby Institution Payments Scheme. A report under this section shall consider the following matters:

(a) whether the level of payments under the Scheme are adequate and if they should be increased;

(b) whether eligibility for a general payment should be extended to all relevant persons who were resident in a relevant institution for any period of time, including those who were resident for less than 180 days;

(c) whether eligibility for a general payment should be extended to all relevant persons who were resident in a relevant institution and subjected to illegal vaccine trials or any other medical experimentation on relevant persons;

(d) whether additional institutions, including those in which children were placed in a nursed out or boarded out arrangement by a local authority, health board, or other institution in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function, should be inserted in Schedule 1;

(e) whether additional institutions, including those in which children of mixed race were placed, and in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function should be inserted in Schedule 1;

(f) the extent to which the Scheme is in compliance with any determination by a judicial review or an international human rights treaty body relating to remedies for any person who resided in an institution in which children were placed, either directly or from a relevant institution under Schedule 1, and in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function.”.

All we can do at this point is call for this report on all of the key points we called out at each and every Stage of this Bill. As the Minister knows very well, this Bill is fundamentally flawed. Sinn Féin will vote against this Bill. We will do so because people are being arbitrarily excluded from the scheme. Some 24,000 of them, who spent fewer than six months in an institution. It is an arbitrary figure the Minister has never been able to explain or justify. Each time I have asked him this question, he has never once come back with a clear response. Today is the last opportunity. I call on him to please justify excluding those people with fewer than six months' experience in one of these institutions. He has again excluded those who were boarded out. How on earth can he stand over this? I remember meeting a man in west Cork several years ago, who explained to me how from the age of five he was out thinning turnips for a farmer in the fields. He was one of these boarded out children, subjected to slave labour. The Minister has excluded him from this scheme. He has excluded thousands of others like him from this scheme. I have to ask, on behalf of those watching at home and on behalf of our guests here as well, how it came to this. How on earth can he justify excluding these thousands of people? In doing so, he is ensuring the State is failing the survivors of mother and baby homes again, in 2023. I do not believe, when the Minister set out to become involved in politics, that this was his aim. I know he has a background in human rights. I need to understand. More importantly, the survivors need to understand how in God's name he justifies excluding all of these thousands of people. Let us be clear, the primary responsibility falls on him. He is the Minister. He is the person who makes these decisions. He has decided to exclude these people. It is grossly unfair.

Like my colleague, Senator Boyhan, I am finding it harder to speak on these issues at this stage because the arguments have been so well rehearsed. Like him, I pay tribute to the Oireachtas joint committee. I want to pay particular tribute to my colleague, Deputy Funchion, who, along with her colleagues produced an excellent report. It was a report, which in key aspects, the Minister has chosen to ignore. He will be remembered, not as the Minister who resolved these issues but as the Minister who excluded thousands of survivors from the justice they are surely entitled to. In 2023, that is his legacy. For one last time, I ask him. I only have this opportunity to speak. I will not get the opportunity to speak again. That is how it works on Report Stage. It is the only amendment from Sinn Féin. Obviously I will support other amendments. I pay tribute again to Senator Boyhan, for his eloquence and passion with everything he has said again today. Indeed, I pay tribute to my colleagues in civil engagement, not just to Senator Ruane, but to Senator Higgins, who has led superbly on this issue on every Stage. However, we are now at the closing gate and all we can do in opposition is call out the political accountability for these actions. The political accountability belongs to the Minister, and his colleagues in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, and to each and every one of those Senators who will vote for the Minister's Bill and against the interests of thousands of people he has chosen to exclude. All the nice words in the world will not change that. As I have said before, most of us will be thrown out of here at some point and all we can do is look back on our legacy. We can look back on whether we did the right thing at the most crucial times. This is one of those times. I call again on Government Senators to vote against this Bill. It is grossly unfair. This is our last opportunity. I ask the Minister to please give me a straight response to a straight question. How does he justify excluding 24,000 people under this arbitrary six-month figure? How does he justify excluding the thousands of people who were boarded out, that is, the survivors of the mother and baby homes? It is a disgraceful decision. He must give us a straight answer.