Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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260. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will expand the terms of investigation into mother and baby homes to include a home (details supplied) and in particular issues surrounding the illegal and abusive testing of vaccinations at that home. [24848/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Under its terms of reference the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes (and certain related Matters) is currently investigating 14 named Mother and Baby Homes and a representative sample of County Homes.

The list comprises of those homes which can clearly be identified as having both:

(i) the primary function of providing sheltered and supervised ante and post-natal facilities to single mothers and their children, which included both board and lodgings; and

(ii) an ethos which those running the institutions considered to promote a regime of work, training or education as part of an overall approach to either rehabilitating single mothers before they left the institution, or to give them training for living independently.

The information available about the institution in question does not indicate that it meets these criteria.

In its Second Interim Report, the Commission did not make any recommendations regarding an extension of their terms of reference at the present time. The Commission stated that it was satisfied that the institutions it is investigating are ‘unquestionably’ the main such homes that existed during the 20th century and that it does not currently recommend that other institutions be investigated. In its report the Commission commits to including relevant information on other institutions which have come to its attention in its social history report which will form a key part of its final report. At this future point, the report notes that the Commission may also be in a position to comment on the need for any further investigations in respect of these institutions.

I am conscious that the Commission's terms of reference already include mechanisms to ensure that any additional matters which the Commission may deem to warrant investigation can be brought to the attention of Government and Government would consider any such recommendations.

While the report states that the commission is not seeking an extension to its current remit, I have indicated that I want to conduct a scoping review to consider if broader terms of reference would help answer some of the questions which have been raised again in public debate. In this context it is useful to remind ourselves that many of the additional issues being raised again in public discourse were examined when the commission was being established. While I am open to examining the calls for an extension, it is essential that we do so with a full understanding of the considerable breadth and scope of its current terms of reference.