Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, we are not allowed to amend the Bill to directly delete the minimum 180-day residency requirement for survivors to qualify for general payment under the scheme. As a compromise, this amendment No. 15 once again calls for a report on the potential to remove the 180-day residency requirement. It also calls for the Minister to examine how many applied to the scheme within the 12 months and were deemed ineligible specifically because of the 180-day residency requirement. It is to be hoped this second part has been addressed by Government amendments Nos. 42 and 43, and we received assurances around this in last week's debate.

I will reiterate the points that were made on Committee Stage, because this is another core injustice and omission in the redress scheme. Until this exclusion is removed, it is impossible to support the scheme. If a child, regardless of what they suffered or experienced in a home, happens to have spent less than six months in that home, they will receive no redress under this Bill. It is indefensible. As we have heard repeatedly, this provision alone will exclude 24,000 survivors from redress. What is most appalling about this is that the entire scheme has been built upon this length of stay criterion. Nothing else about a survivor's experience is accounted for - not the loss of their family, abuse, or anything. The Government has reduced it to pure mathematics, and then to add insult to injury, it has put an arbitrary line in the sand where anyone who falls below the six-month line simply gets dumped out of the scheme.It is deeply wrong to suggest that a child who spent less than six months in a home would not have been severely harmed by their experience, given that their stay often involved forced family separation, which echoed throughout their entire lives.

As Senator Higgins highlighted on Committee Stage, the high child mortality rate in places like Bessborough should be enough evidence that infants who spent any amount of time in the home are likely to have suffered adverse health impacts. A child who spent any of their early months in any home needs to be included in the redress scheme. Most galling is that the Government has declined to give an answer to the survivors, who engaged in the process in good faith, as to why they will be excluded. The Government does not have the courage to admit the truth of this decision, which is that this is penny-pinching. It is a hard-hearted, cold, cost-saving exercise. It is cruelty heaped upon cruelty.

The length of stay criterion goes directly against the recommendations of the OAK report, which was the result of a consultation process with hundreds of survivors. The recommendations of the report could not have been more clear, with 64% of survivors agreeing forced family separation should be among the criteria determining the amount of redress received, while 61% agreed psychological trauma should be a factor.

Amendment No. 16 calls for a report on the potential to extend eligibility under section 18(3) for a work-related payment to all relevant persons under paragraph (b) who were resident in a relevant institution for any period of time, including those resident for less than 90 days. The exclusion is unconscionable. There is nothing in the scheme to account for abuses suffered in the course of work and nothing to differentiate between types of work or provide additional redress for the horrible conditions faced by those working in the homes or for the gruelling nature of that work. The only criterion is the length of residency. It adds insult to injury to say if a person only worked for 90 days, it does not constitute a harm great enough to warrant redress. This is especially unfair given survivors have no avenue to appeal for more redress based on their different experiences of work in the institutions. This is because there is no second track as the Government refuses to provide it. For people who sustained lifelong disabilities or physical injury from the type of work required of them, there is no additional redress. I am saying a “two-track system”; the Minister referred to a “two-tier system”. There is a slight difference between the two. It is about capturing that gruelling work and the complexity of the psychological trauma that has been spoken about. Sometimes redress has to match the person’s needs and the complexities of their lives and what they endured. The work someone engaged in can massively impact how they have been able to work for the rest of their lives and their health. How can this be justified when the scheme remains blind to what was experienced or suffered within those 90 days? This goes against the OAK report.

Amendment No. 17 calls for a report to be laid before:

both Houses of the Oireachtas on the potential to extend eligibility under section 18(4)for provision without charge of health services, specified in paragraphs (a)to (h)of section 34(3)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.

The amendment is about removing the minimum 180-day residency requirement for a survivor to qualify for an enhanced medical card under the scheme. The exclusion is indefensible. Senator Higgins repeatedly pressed these points on Committee Stage and this is one I am particularly shocked the Government has not moved on. It would have been a simple matter on Report Stage to bring an amendment to remove this desperately unfair exclusion. It has no basis in medical evidence or the historical reality of the institutions. The only possible explanation is cost saving. It is especially astonishing in the light of the tens of billions in budget surplus we are projected to have in the coming years.

We know the worst effects of psychological and physical trauma sustained by people in these homes often happened in a short space of time. In particular, the extremely harsh conditions of child birth and the actively cruel practices in the homes in relation to child birth meant enormous lifelong psychological and physical trauma was sustained by mothers within a few hours of entering the home. The idea only those resident for longer than six months would need additional health support is deeply wrong and dishonest about the nature of what happened in the institutions.

I raise the example I raised on Second Stage, which I came upon in the confidential committee report, concerning the deliberate denial of pain relief to mothers giving birth in the institutions:

...what was additionally dreadful for them, they said, was the complete absence of pain medication. This, some alleged, had been deliberate since their birth pains were represented by some nuns (and nurses) as "punishment" - retribution by God for becoming pregnant out of wedlock.

[...]

The overall experience of birth was described by some as so traumatic that there were lifelong physical repercussions, while others were traumatised psychologically.

We know enormous trauma was inflicted on survivors in a very short space of time and the health effects of this physical and psychological trauma were lifelong. The infant mortality rate in the homes was astonishingly high, which indicates any children who spent a short time there may have suffered malnutrition, physical abuse and other lifelong health impacts. We cannot exclude survivors from health supports on the basis of length of stay. The clearest solution is to provide the enhanced medical card to every person who spent any time in these institutions. It is within the Government’s power to grant this and I am at a loss to understand why it would not. Today I can only think of the survivors who engaged in good faith with the scheme and are in anguish wondering why they again face this coldness. There are a huge cohort of survivors being told their experiences do not matter or were not real. This is what the scheme says to those who spent less than six months in the institutions.

I was 15 when I gave birth, and in a different lifetime I could have been in this situation. I also had an extremely difficult birth with my first child. Only in the last weeks, because of that difficult birth and stuff they did not pick up on, I have lost an ovary. That is 23 years in which a decision in a delivery ward can leave you in pain. I have been in pain for 20-odd years, to the point where it is starting to manifest in different ways. I think of the health implications. I was not even in this situation and what they experienced would have been more traumatic. I had a lovely supportive mother beside me trying to help me through it. I nearly bled to death giving birth the first and second time because of the complications. I know the lifelong health conditions women will be left with from birth alone, never mind birth in conditions when they have been denied the care they needed.

This amendment has taken on new significance since last week’s debate. We thought the legislation was bad in parts when it left the Dáil due to the exclusion from medical supports of those who spent less than six months in the homes and other exclusions. It seems to have got worse since the Government’s amendments Nos. 5 and 7, which leave it unclear whether a certain cohort of mothers will qualify for the scheme. Not only will this cohort who were in the homes primarily to give birth not receive medical supports, it seems they may now be excluded entirely from the scheme, not even able to claim a general payment. This needs to be reversed. There is still time for the Government to reconsider this.