Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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21. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will revise the terms of the Mother and Baby Home Commission to include St. Patrick's Guild in view of the transfer of more than 13,500 files from St Patrick's Guild Adoption Agency to Tusla; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22971/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Deputy will be aware, the central focus of the Commission of Investigation established by SI 57 of 2015 is on mothers and children accommodated in Homes for the purposes of extended ante- and post-natal maternity and infant care services. On that basis it would not be appropriate to include St Patrick's Guild as a Mother and Baby Home, as it did not provide this range of services.

However, in accordance with Article 1(VII) of their Terms of Reference, the Commission is directed to investigate the exit pathways of children from the homes listed in Appendix 1 of the relevant SI. and to examine the extent to which other institutions were part of the entry or exit pathways for single mothers and children into or out of these Homes. It is certainly open to the Commission to give consideration to the types of institutions raised by the Deputy in this context. It should also be noted that the issues to be examined by the Social History Module described in Article 11 (I) of the Terms of Reference explicitly cite adoption societies in this regard.

I am satisfied that this independent Commission has sufficient scope to examine a broad range of concerns, and to make a determination on their relevance to the central issues in question, and where appropriate to make any recommendations to me which the Commission deems necessary.