Shambles on the Mother and Baby report is unforgivable
RODERIC O’GORMAN has played to perfection the role of the political omnishambles since publication of the report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission last month.
Frankly, he appears to be out of his depth as a would-be political heavyweight with a senior appointment in government as Minister of Children and Equality etc.
It was absolutely clear from the start that two key findings in the report – that there was no evidence of women being forced into those gulags by the Catholic Church or the State and very little evidence of ‘enforced’ adoptions – called for a rigorous response from O’Gorman as the relevant minister. There was none.
This week, he again appears entirely lacking in authority in his handling of the latest row to afflict the Commission, the destruction of 550 audio recordings of survivor testimonies.
O’Gorman’s faltering imagery first emerged publicly when he failed to put distance between himself and Taoiseach Micheál Martin after the Fianna Fáil leader attempted to blame broader society for the rampant, decades-long abuse of thousands of women and children in those homes.
THAT was the time for O’Gorman to have stepped out of the chorus and found his voice. Instead, the Green Minister went politically pale in the face and funked it.
His failure, both to challenge the Taoiseach and call out those key findings in the Commission’s report, was as unforgivable as it was politically servile.
Because, one doesn’t have to be either a political scientist or social historian to know that the reason pregnant women ended up in the heartless, suffocating embrace of religious-run homes and State-run county homes was precisely due to an evil and corrupt partnership between Church and State. Polar opposite to what the report found.
Human rights lawyer Dr Maeve O’Rourke, in a report in the Irish Daily Mail, says the destruction of witnesses’ recordings amounts to a ‘very serious breach’ of their data rights. After O’Gorman said he had been told by the Commission that the recordings cannot be retrieved, Dr O’Rourke quite properly asked what investigations have been conducted to establish if that was, in fact, the case.
Dr O’Rourke said forms given to survivors before they gave their evidence said nothing about the recordings being destroyed. Persuasively, she also pointed out that the law allowing for the setting up of Commissions of Investigations clearly states that every piece of evidence gathered must, at the end, be handed over to the relevant Minister.
Law aside, one is entitled to wonder why anybody would countenance the destruction of hugely important, historic, first-hand, witness accounts from survivors of a system that will shame Ireland forever.
Concerns about confidentiality could easily have been met by simple redactions of names and the like – but the essential archive would, and should, have been protected for reference and analyses and learnings into the future. Destroying such a resource was an act that defies explanation. Why?
When pressed, this week Minister O’Gorman finally moved, with plans to ‘engage’ with the Commission to make sure the tapes are really gone gone. Action man.
There are two further and necessary moves he should also take.
FIRST, he must extend the life of the Commission beyond February 28 – this day week – when it’s due to shut up shop and disappear. This would allow whatever inquiries may be launched about the destroyed survivor records to proceed. But, he should also declare his intention to have the findings of the Commission’s report thoroughly debated and hopefully rejected and set aside by the Dáil and the Government in turn. That may commence the rehabilitation of his political reputation.
The incorrect and unfounded findings of Judge Kevin Lynch’s Kerry Babies Tribunal report took just over 35 years to be formally overturned.
How long will we have to wait for this Commission’s to be binned in like manner by the politicians who established it?