Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I am not going to delay the Members too much because we had a lot of debate on this for many years in both Houses. Ultimately, we live in a democracy and politicians make decisions, and ultimately some of them are held to account and others are not because of the different electoral systems we have. I am a democrat and I am also a pragmatist. There will be other days and opportunities and I believe in the power of democracy and engagement. We will have to go back to the grind and impress upon politicians again what has to be done.I think today in particular of the survivors of Westbank Orphanage in the home town of the Tánaiste. I think of the commitments the Wicklow TDs, and, indeed, a few Senators and councillors, gave them. I believe we will see a way forward for the Westbank survivors, and rightly so, as the commission recommended. They should be included in the redress scheme.

I spoke earlier about St. Augustine's school for children with special needs and learning difficulties, which was one of many facilities run by St. John of God. Many of those people came from disadvantaged homes and institutions. We have seen very little justice for them but, last week, the courts gave a five-year sentence to an 85-year-old man, who is now in Mountjoy Prison. However, it is not much consolation to the brave victims, men and women, who lived in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland. There were also the children in Malawi, where this man was sent and where he continued his horrific crimes.

We saw how the religious orders surrounded their brother member. Of course, there can be one bad apple in an orchard and I will never condemn all religious. I have a lot of time for faith-based communities. Many of them have suffered and are victims themselves. In a community, be it a family or religious community, when someone goes astray and does horrible, dangerous and evil things, it sometimes reflects on everybody, which is not always fair. I have always said we must acknowledge the good people in religious life who had great difficulties in highlighting their concerns.

l thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service. As I say in reference to every Bill we debate, without the support of its staff and the forensic detail they provided in the digest on this and other legislation relating to the residential institutions redress scheme, I would not be equipped with all the facts. I thank in particular Dr. Caroline Sweeney, one of the senior parliamentary researchers in law, who serves us so well in her work.

We must be positive and pragmatic as we go forward. I again refer to the statement by the Minister's predecessor in the Department, Deputy Foley, when she said: "The whole of government is acutely conscious of the enormous trauma which has been endured by all survivors of abuse, including those in residential institutions [and schools]. It is vital that survivors know that government is responding." I believe the Minister, Deputy McEntee, will respond. I believe the exchanges we have had in the past few days have impacted on her. I think she has learned something from our exchanges, and I thank her for that.

I have a number of requests for the Minister. I ask that we look again, with a whole-of-government approach, at access to the Health (Amendment) Act card, as it covers more than the enhanced medical card provided under the scheme. I will email her about this. Most of the people we are discussing are in their 70s, 80s or 90s and already have medical cards. I had a letter from, and spoke to, a woman who is on medical pain relief patches that cost €90 a month and are not covered by her medical card. I have spoken to people who have to go a chiropodist and only get €30 off a €75 consultation because it is not covered by the medical card. These are people who have real issues with their health. Let us look at access to the HAA medical card.

I ask that we prioritise using local government services to see whether housing and supports can be accessed for survivors. We should consider working closely with the Camden, Tower Hamlets and other councils in the greater London area. There is huge demand from Irish people living there and elsewhere abroad to avail of the services provided for under the scheme. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, is doing a lot of work with the Irish diaspora. There are challenges in this regard. I visit London six or seven times a year and that includes visiting the Irish centres and the people who go there, who are now in their 80s and 90s. We must look at how we can help them. The phrase "bring them home" has a nice tune to it but it is not possible. In many cases, the home they left is not the home to which they would be returning. I ask that we prioritise housing for those people.

I ask for a special pension for survivors, who include child labourers and pregnant women who had to work in industrial laundries. They have no pension contributions and no special provision. The Minister, Members and people in the Gallery know of these people. There should be a special pension or subvention - it can be called whatever the Minister likes - to give them some decency, dignity and care in their old age.

I ask that we consult with survivors on suitability of nursing home care. These are people who were in institutions for years and may now have to go back into institutional care. Many of them have no partners, children or family members and they will need care. It is important that we have an aftercare package for them.

We must continue to offer full, free and unlimited counselling support services for survivors. That should be guaranteed through whatever measures may be required.

I ask for measures to address the intergenerational impact of abuse by way of counselling services and educational supports for the children of survivors. The intergenerational impact of abuse is something I have learned about in recent years. I know of teenagers and people in their 20s and 30s in addiction, homeless and with other difficulties whose parents came through very difficult times. It is a cycle of intergenerational suffering. There is a lot of work to do in terms of networking and providing supports. It is an area that needs particular care.

We need redress for people who were boarded out. Girls who were put into slavery have been given no recognition, care or support and no pension. Many of them ran away and are now in mental institutions or otherwise in difficulty. Men were farmed out with no consent from their parents. Nobody seems to know who was in loco parentis. I have brought a number of those individuals as guests to Leinster House and have heard their stories and experiences. We surely must do something for them, including providing outreach. I know of a man who was left a smallholding in Galway who, because he was not related to the owner, had to sell all the land to pay the inheritance tax. These were nice people with no children who took a boy aged seven into their home. He worked as a farm labourer, picking potatoes and stones, but he had a loving and meaningful relationship with those people. The greatest honour that couple could bestow was to leave to the boy, now a man, their homes and 30 acres when they died, but he had to sell it. Others have probably had similar experiences.

I ask for justice and redress for the vulnerable children who were used for drug trials. The Taoiseach gave a commitment to both Houses on a number of occasions to investigate the testing of drugs and vaccines on children without any consent by their parents or guardians. The facts have been ascertained and the Government is fully aware of them. We continue to have an immunisation programme delivered by GlaxoSmithKline, which is the successor of companies involved in those trials. A number of successful journalists have done a lot of work on this issue. We must look at how we can address a situation whereby people, many of whom contact my office on a regular basis, were victims, as children, of drug trials in State institutions.

The Minister has committed to pursuing rigorously the indemnity agreement that was made between the Government of the time and the churches. I hope she will follow up on this. We should remember that it was those indemnified institutions that were included in the redress schedule. Where religious orders did not enter into the indemnity scheme - a full copy of which I have in my office, signed by the religious superiors - many of the relevant institutions were not allowed into the redress scheme. As we all know, the people who lived in those institutions did not and will not qualify under the terms of the Bill the Minister has brought to the House.

Those are my requests to the Minister, which I will email to her. I know she cannot pursue them all on her own. I ask that she bring them forward as part of the whole-of-government approach her predecessor, Deputy Foley, spoke about in April last year. I am committed to pursuing these issues and I will not lose heart. I believe in the parliamentary and democratic process. I ask my colleagues, if they support any of my requests, to take it upon themselves to advocate for and pursue them within their parliamentary parties.Will they chip away and try to see if we can make this world a better place for a generation of people who are mostly now over 75? These are men and women who served this State with distinction, people who still want to call themselves Irish, who are our diaspora, who are all over the world and who connect with Ireland. They have not lost heart with Ireland. They may have lost heart with their faith, they may have lost heart with people who they thought cared about them, but they are innately Irish people. I hope that, as an Irish state, as a republic, a true republic in the meaning of what a republic is all about, we will stand with them, work with them and commit to advocating and making this world, for the past few years that they have, a somewhat better place than the experience they had to endure at the hands of this State in the past.