Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

I want to explain why Sinn Féin has opposed the Bill. There are supports in this Bill that are welcome for survivors. However, in good conscience, we could not support it when it excludes some survivors from different residential institutions. We feel there should be equal access to support for all, irrespective of whether they had received a settlement from Caranua or any other type of settlement from any other scheme. The legislation is excluding people on spurious grounds and it does not take a human rights approach. People who were boarded out or fostered out, people from certain institutions and people who spent less than 180 days in an institution are excluded from this scheme. When redress was announced, many people were living overseas, some were in prison and others were in other institutions and, therefore, were not aware of or not able to apply for redress. To be excluded from the supports in this Bill because they did not apply for redress at the time is retraumatising for all of those survivors.

We know that many of the survivors from the institutions here, perhaps up to 40%, live overseas and a large number live in Britain. The once-off payment of €3,000 is not sufficient. It should be increased or at least index-linked. While I acknowledge it is outside the scope of this Bill, there should be some way of seeking clarification that these payments are disregarded when it comes to means-tested payments, especially for those living in Britain.

The consultation with survivors report, which was commissioned by the Department of Education in 2019, contained a number of issues for priority that were identified by the survivors. The first was the request for a HAA card. An enhanced medical card is included in this Bill but while an enhanced medical card is a medical card without means-testing, which is welcome, it does not really give anything additional to anyone who has a medical card. A HAA card could lead to shorter waiting times for procedures or give survivors access to different supports they need without limitation and without having to wait for months or years for those services. A range of supports needs to be put forward for survivors in recognition of the trauma they have been through in their lifetime. They do not need to be waiting further for supports.

The other priority is housing. We know that many are living in social housing or are on a social housing list. It has been suggested by Patricia Carey, who is a special advocate for survivors, that additional priority on local authority housing lists could be given. This would be similar to the priority that is given to those with medical conditions or a disability so they get priority on social housing lists but also adaptation grants or other grants that will make their homes liveable so they can continue to live there.

I wish I could support the Bill because if I could, it would mean that all of the supports are being made available to all of the survivors. That is what we need to see. We need to see everybody treated equally. We need to have the hurt, the beatings, the sexual abuse, the hunger, the lack of care and the lack of education in some cases - all of that – acknowledged and somehow, in some small way, made up for. If people are continually excluded from supports, that cannot happen.