Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I also extend a welcome to Councillor O'Heney and everyone in the Gallery.

I will refer to the section. It is very interesting. I opened earlier by talking about the consultation with survivors of institutional abuse and the themes and issues that were addressed in July 2019. It is now 2025 but back then, in 2019, the issue of access to the HAA medical card was raised. There is nothing new here. There are budgetary processes involved but let us not cod ourselves; the will is not there to give access to that card. The HAA medical card is given in very exceptional circumstances. I talked earlier about those who were excluded. We keep forgetting about that issue. Every time I raise it, the Minister does not address it. I told her about the people at Westbank Orphanage and many other institutions who have been excluded. I talked about my engagement with support groups for Irish people in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and London. Loads of these people are not involved. My sister is involved in an Irish lunch club in south-east London. I have gone over there and met the people involved. They knew nothing about redress schemes. They were excluded. They did not know about it. We failed to communicate that. We closed the door. I have been told we do not want to open the floodgates. I have no problem with opening any floodgates if it means providing truth, justice, redress and compensation to these people because they are entitled to it. They are entitled to a bit of decency at the end of their lives.

Senator Curley talked about social pensions. I have said it before and I will say it again: I have brought people in here who were farmed out. These were horrific cases. I think of two men who came to us. Many Members of the previous Seanad would have met them because they were guests of mine and I made a point of introducing them to people. They were farmed out. Both of them came from Tuam. I think today of Tuam and the brave Catherine Corless. That issue will be on our agenda next week or the week after. We will come in and meet people and we will all be shocked and disgusted about what happened there. Politicians in both Houses will issue a load of platitudes. However, we have to judge people by what they do. These two people were farmed out of Tuam so all of this is raw enough for them. They were slave labourers. They lived in barns and ate out of troughs. They were treated like dirt and they are excluded. We have done nothing for them. We talk about this great agricultural country that we are and yet these men were farmed out as slaves. We think of all of the women who were sent to institutions and who worked in industrial laundries. Many of us, including the Minister and I, know of them. Some of them, although not all, were also excluded. I cannot understand why we cannot put in place a medical card.

I particularly think of the drug trials because I lived in an institution where drug trials took place. Indeed, I was in this very house nearly 27 years ago when Micheál Martin was involved in advocacy on the issue. Later on, when he was Minister for Health and Children, he spoke about great commitments and three trial institutions, Bessborough and two in Dublin, were investigated. Wellcome, now part of GlaxoSmithKline, was involved in those trials. Through very decent people in pharmacology in UCD and with the help of "Today Tonight", the forerunner of "Prime Time", I procured evidence of these drug trials. The right to bodily integrity is enshrined in our Constitution. I acknowledge Alan Shatter because he gave us a lot of initial support at the time. The Taoiseach of this country is on the record of these Houses as making this commitment. He has had a long and distinguished political career and I salute him for that. Did I ever think I would be standing here? Did I ever think he would be in the next building as Taoiseach of our country? I looked at the record of this House today and he committed to seeing an end to all of this. Surely it is incumbent on the Government he leads to give support to providing medical cards. No parental consent was given for these commercial drug trials. Doctors have testified they were involved in them. Drug companies paid these institutions money. All of this has after-effects but somehow it is not possible to provide medical cards. We know about the hepatitis scandal and other issues. It is not unreasonable to ask for a medical card for people.

It does not wash with me that we cannot speak about it today or that we should do so some other day. There is no other day. We are winding this down today. The Government's legislation has two principles. The first is to wind down Caranua, the support agency, and its funding. I do not know how much funding is left but we will come to that when discussing another section later on. The second is to put in place educational supports. We hear about doctorates and degrees but I have not seen too much about simpler training and support services. The Minister will know about the payscale. While I mean no disrespect to anyone, I do not believe there will be too many people knocking on the Minister's door. She will not be washed out providing money for honorary doctorates and degrees. I will put this in context because it is really important. When you are incarcerated in an institution from a very early age, your confidence is gone and your emotions are impacted. You close down. You are not stupid but you do not have the capacity to concentrate, to learn or to receive positive messages, whether educational, emotional or social. People who are struggling face many boundaries and hindrances. Their antennae of alertness are highly attuned because it is about survival. We have that innate quality to survive against the odds. Some of us manage better than others, albeit with many setbacks and falls.

It is not unreasonable to include these children, these slaves, who were to be found in counties Meath, Kildare and Donegal and all over the place and whom the Minister's parents and family members of another generation would know of. We need to send a very clear message. It is not too much to give them a special pension or some sort of official top-up or recognition. We have known this has been coming down the line for years. I will go back to 2019, when there was talk of the need for some support in elderly life. Many of these people have no partners. Through no fault of their own, they have not been able to develop secure, loving and meaningful relationships. They are disadvantaged. That is how serious it is. Unless you are impacted by this, you do not really understand. None of us really understand how lonely it is for these people to navigate life, particularly in old age. Surely we, as a State, can support them and help them in some way. We should have a pension for them. The Minister is going to tell me something else today. She has come with a script and has a job to do. I also have a job to do. Mine is to advocate for this particular area of concern. There should be social pensions. It is simply not good enough that nothing has been done about it for the last few years. The Government has had a very long time to bring this in. I do not refer to the Minister personally. Nothing I ever say here is personal. I take it that applies on both sides and I accept it from the Minister as well.

On those who were boarded out, the medical card and the HAA card are two things we should have. I would be a happier man leaving here today if the Minister could say that she personally believes providing a HAA card is the right thing to do, that she is personally committed to some sort of pension and acknowledgement of child labour, whether in industrial schools, in industrial laundries or on the farms of Ireland, and that she will personally advocate to see these things commenced at some point through some vehicle of legislation.