'It's hurtful, cruel and disgraceful' - Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 22 Feb 2023

Taoiseach, Today the Government wants to pass through the Dáil legislation establishing the Mother and Baby Home Redress Scheme, despite the fact that the scheme shamefully excludes children who spend less than six months in a mother and baby institution or a county home, and as a consequence, 24,000 survivors will be left behind by the Government's proposed scheme. It is scandalous that this exclusionary, discriminatory provision remains in the legislation. The scheme creates a hierarchy of victims by taking the view that some mothers and their children suffered less than others. The very idea that a child who spent less than six months in a home suffered no damage or injury and is not entitled to redress is just unacceptable. The Government is saying that these children did not spend long enough in a home to suffer trauma from being forcibly separated from their mother. That is wrong. For a child taken from their mother against her will, the trauma was and is the act of separation itself, a trauma that lasts a lifetime. This happened on the watch of the State and there must be redress for this injustice. The proposed scheme is a botched scheme. It does not meet the needs of survivors in an equal and fair way, Taoiseach. And it is not just Sinn Féin saying this. Concerns have been raised by the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, by the UN Special Rapporteur and by the UN Human Rights Committee. No matter how long a child spent in these places, no matter what age they were when they left, they suffered greatly and their trauma is real. No arbitrary six-month line drawn by the Government changes this reality. It is more on noire eis scheme an realtis. It is omi dina a hónig slán oan óraes mórhaca agus ní nán oan a tóa fálka amac oan cúchef. Ní mór an scheme a athru, anus go megh goch martha noar sa náhraif. It is eis seo an rúd ciaart aeinav. The survivors of mother and baby homes have shown remarkable resilience and dignity in the face of great adversity. If it was not for their courage, their bravery, there would have been no commission of investigation, no state apology, no redress scheme whatsoever to speak of. The scheme that comes before the Dáil today is an insult to those survivors and to the hard road that they have walked. They have walked that road together, not separated or divided. They have not left anybody behind and they will not allow Government to do so now. This week on the radio we heard from many survivors. We heard from Jean and Eamon, both who spent less than six months in a home. They say that this scheme makes them feel irrelevant. More importantly, it suggests that their separation from their mother did not matter. That is the human impact of this legislation. The opposition, I have to say, have engaged in good faith to try and get the changes needed for a redress scheme that is just, but the Minister is not listening. Somebody needs to listen now, and that somebody must be you, Taoiseach. I am asking you now, as Head of Government, to intervene and to drop this discriminatory six-month rule. I am asking you to bring forward a scheme that truly meets the needs of survivors in a fair and equal way. These women and their families have had to fight the State every step of the way. They should not have to fight any longer. The Mother and Baby Home Institutions payment scheme is currently being debated by the Oireachtas. The payment scheme will include financial payments to an estimated 34,000 people and a form of enhanced medical card for almost 20,000 people who are resident in Mother and Baby and County home institutions at a cost of approximately €800 million to the taxpayer. It is one of the biggest schemes of its type, as we seek to put right some of the wrongs of the past. While no measure could possibly hope to make up for the trauma and wrongs committed in institutional settings in the 20th century, the Government has engaged and responded in a meaningful way. We have brought forward redress in several different forms, and it is not just about money. One of which is the proposed payment scheme, which is the largest scheme ever brought forward by the State in terms of the number of intended recipients. On 22 February, the bill was debated at a report stage in the Dáil and adjourned until 22 February. The bill will be presented shortly thereafter. The scheme will open as soon as possible in 2023, once the legislation is passed by the Oireachtas and the administrative framework is in place, and we want no further delays in that regard. In parallel with the legislative process, intensive work is underway on the development of the structures we need to put in place to administer the payment scheme, including an independent executive office situated in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We recognise the fact that many women face significant barriers, including the lack of financial and family support, which left them with no choice in this matter. They were abandoned by the fathers of their children, as noted by the Commission Investigation Report. Shame, stigma and ostracism all contributed profoundly to a hostile environment in which to be a single mother outside of marriage. The implication that adoption in all cases equated to forced family separation can create a harmful and hurtful narrative for adoptive parents and their children, whether adopted from a mother-baby institution or another setting. I think we need to be sensitive to that too. The Government's view is that we want a payment system that is non-adversarial, does not have any investigative element, and does not have to rely on incomplete or non-existent documentary evidence. Instead, a generalised payment, without the need for assessment, has been brought forward for every surviving woman who spent any time at all in any one of the institutions. In relation to children who spent less than six months in an institution, who were adopted or otherwise separated from their birth family, the overwhelming priority need which has been expressed through the extensive engagement with those concerns is access to records, information about their identity. For those children who spent short periods of time in an institution during their infancy, the action plan provides a response to their needs, primarily through the Birth Information and Tracing Act and the investment that has been made to support implementation of this legislation. The new information and tracing service under the Act opened for applications last October, providing for the first time access to birth certificates and also wider birth and early life information, for those who have questions in relation to their origins. I am sure you are aware that your own survivor consultation, which was extensive, reported that there were numerous and many harms and human rights violations identified which needed reparation. They recorded that the primary one was the loss of the mother-child bond and the relationship. The primary damage was done by separation. Yet in an arbitrary way, you have decided that those who were separated from their mother, if they happened to be in the institution for less than six months, are not to be covered by this redress scheme. That is arbitrary. I put it to you Taoiseach that that is actually cruel in my view. You do not have to do this. If I were sitting where you are, I would not do this for the very simple reason that it is wrong. God knows, over the years, we have heard testimony and heartbreak, plenty and many, from families who were devastated by this experience. So I am asking you again as Taoiseach to intervene on this matter and to drop this arbitrary and cruel rule. Thank you. Taoiseach please. I do not think it is fair to characterise the decision of government as being arbitrary in this matter. We had a commission of investigation. It made its findings. It recommended a set of actions and a redress scheme. We decided to go well beyond what was recommended by the independent commission chaired by an independent judge. They looked at the matter for many years before coming to their findings and we went further than they recommended. It is not fair to say it is arbitrary in that regard. I think it is also not fair to characterise the sole response of the government as being one linked to financial compensation. There is much more to what we are doing than that. For example, one of the things we have done is put in place immediate counselling support and that was available on the publication of the commission's final report through the HSE National Counselling Service. There is also a state apology made by Taoiseach Michal Martin in January 2021 which was significant too. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main requests and demands from people who were born in mother and baby institutions was that we change our laws so that they can have access to their birth certs to have access to information about their early lives. That was done. It is the Birth Information Tracing Act in 2022. Almost 7,000 requests in already, 2,000 cases completed and we are really pulling out the stops to make sure that we get that information to people affected as soon as possible. There is the National Central Repository of Records, the National Centre of Research and Remembrance, research scholarships, we are trying to get public access to the state files and redress. It is heartless, it is cruel and it is disgraceful, Taoiseach. Thank you, Mr. Kizak. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.