News websites were reporting that Michael D Higgins had signed the Commission of Investigation Bill into law.
The legislation centered on a database of information linking children and mothers, which had been compiled by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby homes. As the bill entered its final stages in the Seanad, Minister O’Gorman acknowledged that through his intention to resolve one issue, he lost sight of the major legacy issues that have to be dealt with in the State, which he said are not "cold legal problems".
When a commission completes its work and before its dissolution, under the Act the chairperson deposits "all evidence received by and all documents created by or for the commission" with the specified Minister. It would explore living conditions and care arrangements experienced by residents; the causes, circumstances and rates of mortality among mothers and children residing in the institutions - and post-mortem practices and procedures in respect of children or mothers who died while resident in the homes.
Just over 20 days later, Mr O’Gorman took the baton from Ms Zappone as Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Direct Provision was also moved to his Department from Justice. Significantly, the correspondence to interested parties said the Commission informed the Department that it had created a database "earlier in the year".
In his rush to get the legislation through the Oireachtas before the Commission’s deadline of 30 October, the Minister failed to contact survivor representative groups or to consider delaying the publication of the final report to slow the process. It doesn’t state they should be sealed for 30 years. The language used to explain why the urgent legislation was so pressing, concerned survivors and representative groups.
For its part, the Child and Family Agency has pointed out that legislation is very weak. This, it says, is the reason why it has limited ability to respond to very "understandable questions" from people about their identity and birth parents.
Michael D Higgins - as popular in Ireland 🇮🇪 as Virapro hand sanitizer..
They got this so wrong.Bad,or lack of communication once again highlights the shambles all our governments are & have been when it comes to keeping the electorate fully informed.Reactionary explanations,good or bad,AFTER the fact isn't good enough.Little babies deserve better.
We all knew it was never 'put behind us'. We're still not even sure of the full story, it's always been a side venture. How many grown adults still don't know their past? What was really going on in Tuam? How much did the Church authority (I mean Rome) green light this?