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A representative organization led by maternity and child home survivors must be established “urgently” because for “too long” they had been ignored, an online event for survivors heard on Saturday.
Under the title Stop the Seal of Mother and Baby Home Records, the event would initially take place at Zoom with 100 participants. When more than 1,700 people responded to an invitation, however, it moved to a live feed on Facebook.
Speaker after speaker said the Commission of Inquiry (Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters) Registries, and Another Matter, Bill, which went through the Dáil and the Seanad this week, was yet another example of the State “re traumatizes “and” not listening “to survivors.
The controversial legislation, which has yet to be signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins, transfers a database of 60,000 records created by a five-year investigation into homes to the Tusla Children’s and Family Agency.
This was compiled by a commission established under the Investigative Commissions Act 2004, and that Act stipulates that commission records must be kept secret for 30 years.
Opposition TDs and household survivors have expressed outrage and anger at the handling of the legislation that they said should be stopped or delayed for further debate amid fears the records will remain sealed for 30 years.
Mr. O’Gorman emphasized, however, that the new legislation does not seal records for 30 years. He said there were legal problems to overcome in relation to the 2004 Law, but “we have to fix this problem and I am absolutely committed” to doing so, as it is no longer “morally feasible” to deny people access to information.
Fled
Catherine Coffey-O’Brien, who fled Bessborough mother and baby’s home in Cork in 1989 with seven months pregnant, said survivors’ consent was withdrawn when they were in institutions and they were leading again.
“We only have one reason: to be masters of our own history … We need to be heard. We need them to consult us, with care and respect throughout this stage … We don’t want the narrative to be taken away from us ”.
Breeda Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Alliance, said she thought the government saw the legislation as an opportunity to “silence the discourse.
“One of the most distressing parts of all this is that the government and the agents of power have these resources behind them. They have a large amount of money. They can buy all the experts and the survivors are faced with absolute machinery that is inflexible.
“But something changed the other day and I think it is the power of the people and I think it really is the most amazing moment when practically everyone in Dáil Éireann, apart from those in power, spoke for mothers and babies.”
Deirdre Wadding, who also survived Bessborough after giving birth there at age 18 in 1981, said the bill had been “presented to us without consulting us.”
He said a mechanism was needed to ensure that there was a “response to survivors to ask, ‘What do you think?’; ‘How do you feel about that?’
“We need some kind of representative body, like a union, for example, that has members who are responsible and whose jobs are entrusted by the survivors, who will return to the survivors. For me, that would be a democratic way to restore autonomy and consent. These were the things they took from us ”.
She was one of the people who said that they had given testimony to the commission of inquiry and that they had not been told that their testimonies would be sealed for 30 years. Other information was being sealed, he added, which was unknown. “We need to know what that is. Who do they protect? Why? Why is the question? “, He said.
Eunan Duffy, who was born in the Marianvale Mother and Baby Home in Newry, Co Down, said that unless all proceedings were “victim / survivor led, framed and centered, we have nothing.”
Passing the bill was “an absolute disgrace,” he said, adding: “The Republic of Ireland has a way about this and has never been held accountable. When it comes to victims and survivors, we are at the end of the food chain, fair at the end of the stairs.
“This is not done and without dust. I think there will be a severe and forceful legal challenge to everything that has been voted on ”.
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