Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I raise again the issue of the boarded-out children who are now elderly men and women. I have discussed it many times in the House. Sadly, I must report that a man who visited the House many times seeking some sort of redress and acknowledgment unfortunately never got that, as he passed away recently in Galway. His daughter contacted me two or three weeks ago. I had last met them in Gullane's Hotel in Ballinasloe and talked them through it. We thought we had made a breakthrough. Tomorrow, we will be discussing redress. That is a different thing. For many of us, it will be our last time speaking to it in these Houses, because Caranua is now being wound down. I will have a lot to say on that tomorrow.

What will not be covered in that debate is the fact that many men and women were illegally farmed out as labourers, in housekeeping and in farm work, with no proper paperwork or anything else. Many of them are still alive. They are elderly and vulnerable and are craving to know where they came from and where they belonged. We need to support them. We do not need legislation for everything, but we do need enhanced medical cards and supports. We need topped up pensions and housing and to meet whatever their particular sets of needs are. Let us not get hung up all the time in these Houses on needing primary legislation. Let us just do the basic human thing to be kind and supportive in any way we can. My appeal is not to the Legislature, but to us as legislators, that we use our contacts in our own political parties, particularly on the Government side, to ask whether we can put in place a support mechanism for these people in their last years, in their vulnerable years, who are deserving of our support.