Minister: Mother & baby home victims tracing bill ‘a priority’

AN outline of legislation to allow mother and baby home survivors to access their personal information will be published by late March or early April.

Children’s Minister Roderic O’gorman told the Seanad yesterday the Bill is a priority for the Government and rights of people to get the details would be central to the laws.

The Dublin West TD said: “I know that some elements of the report are a disappointment to survivors.

“Sections where a strictly legalistic approach is taken to describing the profoundly personal impacts of what happened within the institutions.

“Sections where the Commission’s conclusion that it could not find evidence of what happened and where this could be interpreted as a denial of the experiences of survivors.”

Mr O’gorman stressed the chapter on the confidential committee could be taken as an “unambiguous statement of the suffering of mothers and children [and] stands as testament to the lived truth of what happened in these institutions”. The Green Party

TD added it “stands as a clear articulation of the repeated failures of Church and State”.

Mr O’gorman repeated the Taoiseach’s apology on behalf of the State to mothers and children and said he too was “deeply

PLEDGE Roderic O’gorman sorry” for their suffering. Independent Senator Victor Boyhan, who grew up in institutional care, insisted there were “glaring holes” in the report.

He described the experiences of many in the institutions as “shocking and terrible” and asked about children who weren’t adopted. Mr

Boyhan said: “If there were horror stories in the mother and baby homes there were even greater horror stories in long-term care. I speak as a man who has lived the experience.

“Anyone who was in care and was subject to, or should have been under, some sort of supervision by the State must get redress.”