Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I thank the Minister and her officials for being here today. I thank all of the guests here. It is great to see so many people here. It is interesting to see that with the exception of two or possibly three men, they are all women. While this is a family matter, it is a particularly important piece of legislation. It is great to see so many people here and no doubt they will have an opportunity to read up on this again at some other point.I will be moving amendments Nos. 9 and 13. For those in the Visitors Gallery, the Bill is the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024. There are a number of reliefs and proposals by the Minister for education, who is taking the Bill at this stage. Amendment No. 9 relates to the transfer of data from residential institutions and from the redress board to the Minister and the disclosure of such information. It also seeks to allow the Minister to disclose personal data to a former resident of a residential institution on request. Amendment No. 13 seeks to amend the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 to remove restrictions on applicants to publish information relating to their own personal application or a reward they may have received under the Act. Currently, survivors are not allowed to publish any information concerning their own applications or relating to an award received that could lead to the identification of an institution or a person, including the applicant himself or herself.

This is about the ownership of the story and, of course, about the victim of abuse, the survivor or the affected person whom we talk about. We talk about people who were in institutional schools, mother and baby homes and other people. For the many people who do not quite understand it, a journalist stopped me today and asked how it is that only certain institutions that were, supposedly, responsible for the care of children were on the schedule and others were not. I was talking in the context of an horrific story that was covered in our national press last Sunday, where a brother in a religious institution and school in Blackrock has received just short of a five-year sentence after many years. That school was St. Augustine's in Blackrock. It is an horrific story. I journeyed with one of the victims and assisted him in navigating the possible remedies open to him.

I remind the Minister of something because I think it is important for all of us in this House to remember. That particular institution, St. Augustine's, which was run by the St. John of God order in Blackrock, was not on the original schedule for redress but, despite many objections, we managed to get it included. That is a case in point, when we look back on the history of this. This was recorded in great detail in the Irish Mail on Sundayand a number of other newspapers last Sunday. Here was an institution with hundreds of boys and, later, girls who went through an institution that was a school - it was carrying out the curriculum of the Department of education - for children who were classified as slow learners or having special needs. A very high percentage of those children who resided or did not reside there came from nearby residential institutions, some of which qualify for redress.

I do not really want to open this up today as it would not be appropriate, but this makes the point that there may still be people, adults now, whose institution was not included in the schedule and, hence, they would not benefit. Only the people whose institutions are on the schedule are going to benefit from this redress. One of the terrible tragedies and anomalies of this scheme is that people, who were children and are now adults, whose institution, for whatever reason, was not included in the schedule are not getting the same redress. That is unfortunate. Later, I will touch on some ideas I have about how we can be inclusive of everybody. We should not be excluding people. I know there is a bureaucratic system in play, and parameters and guidelines had to be drawn up, but people are excluded.

To return to the amendments, they are about ownership, as the Minister will appreciate. Of course, the amendments were put together by Senators Higgins and Ruane, who are strong supporters of equality, redress and a fair deal for the victims and survivors of institutional care and institutional organisations in the State. Unfortunately, they are tied up with other parliamentary business and cannot be here. However, they have impressed upon me the issue of the ownership of these documents. People took risks. People went out and told their stories. It is never easy to tell your story about abuse.You bring a certain amount of guilt. You also bring a focus on your family, particularly if it is rural and isolated. People do not necessarily want to confront or talk about the horrific abuses. What this deals with are critical issues around the rights of access to information, particularly information of vulnerable people, who have now, after many a years-long journey, been able or felt empowered through supports of others to be able to share their story. It has been a discovery for them too, for much of this information was not known to them in earlier years. The Minister has got the gist of what we are talking about and I look forward to her response.