I am sharing time with Deputy Canney.

Today is a day that will be recorded in the history of our country. Today we lay bare a chapter that is already soaked in the tears of many of our citizens. Today is the day that we publicly acknowledge the shame and suffering inflicted on countless women and their children. Today should have come a long time ago.

Last October, I voted for legislation that preserved and protected the database of information and allowed it to be transferred to the control of the Minister. It also enabled publication. Without publication, this day would still be a distant hope for many people. We had no right to deny them their truth. I welcome the fact that the Government is committed to passing legislation to give easy access to information and tracing records. I welcome the commitment to establish a redress scheme. I firmly believe that all religious orders involved should join the State and church in a public apology.

The report has confirmed to us what many people already knew. It is distressing and difficult to read this catalogue of neglect. A written account creates a mental image for those who read it. It can tell us the truth about what happened during this shameful era. It can give us a glimpse into the tormented minds of those who suffered. We fervently hope it can help to heal the broken hearts of those who still carry the pain.

The Ireland of the mother and baby era was a different place to the Ireland of today. These were the times when men ruled and the role of a woman was to cater for their needs. This applied across the class divide. Disgrace and shame knew no class. The church ruled with an iron fist. A devoutly Catholic people lived by its teachings. To go against those teachings, particularly by becoming pregnant outside wedlock, was the ultimate shame. Innocence, naïveté, incest, abuse and rape were the cause of many of these girls becoming pregnant. The finger of blame did not point towards the man, but the fist of the church slammed the women. Even in homes where a daughter was loved and a family tried to protect her, the church stepped in and insisted that she be taken from her family. More commonly, rather than face the disgrace, families took their daughters to be looked after by the nuns until after the babies were born. Looking after a sick relative in England was a typical excuse for a girl suddenly vanishing. We can never fully understand what it was really like. I refer to the anguish of the family, many of whom had no idea that in hiding their shame they were walking their traumatised daughters into the hands of people who would leave them with a lifetime of sadness and emptiness. Church-run institutions funded by the Irish State would inflict months, years and, indeed, lifetimes of tragedy on these young girls. One can only imagine the terrifying confusion each of these young women felt on waking up in a place where she was scorned or referred to as fallen woman, a sinner. Such was their innocence that many did not even understand how they had become pregnant. The thought of childbirth was a mysterious terror. They were not allowed to mix with each other. Friendships were forbidden by the nuns although shared suffering drew the girls together. At night, these frightened girls lay in bed. The screams rang out along the corridor as one of them went through childbirth without a hint of mercy or even a kindly word, yet those were not the screams that haunted these women for the rest of their lives; rather, it was the unnatural, heart-rending cries of a mother who discovered that her baby was gone, gone without any warning, gone without a mother's kiss goodbye.

One of the mother and baby homes, Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, was located in my constituency, Tipperary. From the day it opened in 1930, approximately 6,000 girls and women, passed through its doors.

In its opening year, 60 of the 120 babies born there died. Approximately 800 mothers and babies died between 1930 and 1950. The report highlights the glaring absence of official records. I visited Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home after it closed. I instinctively made the sign of the cross. It is a formidable building and it struck me that it wore its sadness on its sleeve. It was cold, eerie and soulless. Its walls hold hidden stories of appalling mental abuse and neglect. While meandering through the building, it is possible to sense the pain, the grief and the sorrow of innocent victims. One is enveloped by the stark truth of a system that condemned women to be enslaved in a nightmare.

Thankfully, the present generation of politicians have faced up to the sins of the past and are prepared to acknowledge in a meaningful way the suffering endured by so many. Much work remains to be done to meet the justified expectations of those grievously wronged. The doors of these homes of shame are closed forever. The anguish of craving the comfort of a listening voice is gone. The call to have their voices heard has been answered. The hurt and injustice has been recognised and we look to a future of hope and healing.

I welcome the State apology by the Taoiseach. I also welcome the words of the Tánaiste and the Minister. These apologies have come today, but they are long overdue. I also welcome the announcement of an apology by the Sisters of Bon Secours earlier, particularly regarding the mother and baby home in my home town of Tuam. I also welcome the apology made today by the Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary.

I have not yet read the full report because it is impossible to read a report like this without taking bits of it at a time. It is so horrific. I am aware, however, of some of the harrowing accounts because I know some of the people now living in our community who were babies in that home. What they have told us has always been the truth, but it is only now that it is beginning to seep in that it really is the horrible truth. I acknowledge as well the great efforts made by former Deputy and Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, in her work during the previous Government. Her name has not been mentioned here today at all.

I acknowledge the work, commitment and determination of historian and local person, Catherine Corless, for her work in exposing the facts about the Tuam mother and baby home, as it was called, and in driving this process forward to this day where we now have this report from the commission. I also want to pay my respects to the residents of the mother and baby home in Tuam, as well as to the neighbours living around that site who over the years have maintained it and the grave as a sacred place and a place of worship.

Today is the day for saying we are sorry, but it is also the day where we give political leadership. Individually, we must give leadership and there are several things we must do to ensure today does not pass as just a day of talking. We must pass legislation regarding access to records and that must be done immediately. We also need the creation of a national archive of institutional, adoption and other care-related records. We need the creation of a crime investigation unit and a human rights-compliant coroner's inquest. A redress scheme must be put in place; it must be simple and give direct benefit and restitution to those who suffered so much over such a long time. It cannot be something which will be dragged out and full of paperwork and bureaucracy. These people need help and they need it now. We must also ensure that each former resident of a home receives a medical card for life. I welcome what the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister have said in that regard earlier.

The partial leaking of the report last weekend was a grotesque injustice to the people who suffered so much. For somebody to try to curry favour with certain elements of the national media at the expense of the residents of these homes is despicable. We may have an investigation regarding what happened, but we also need to see action and accountability. I was talking to P.J., one of my constituents, this morning. He is a former resident and survivor of the home in Tuam. He made his witness statement to the commission but when he sought records from Tusla, it could not find them. Somehow the records showed up in December, after the commission report had been concluded. P.J. asked me to ask the Minister to find out from the commission whether it had his records and, if it had, why he was not told.

We are starting today on a journey of reparation. We are all on the same road. I do not believe that any politician or anybody should be divisive on this issue. We have much work to do and we must do it fast. We must rebuild trust and help these people. I welcome the fact that the Minister brought in counselling services in advance of the publication of the report. However, most people involved with the webinar held yesterday were dissatisfied that they could not ask questions. They have many questions and they need answers. Without a shadow of a doubt, we cannot push them aside any longer.

I finish by stating that if we allow the direct provision system to continue operating in the way it is, we will end up with another commission of inquiry in 20 or 30 years' time and we will again be saying that this was how things were. We must ensure that we learn not only about the past but also that we prepare for the future and to get things right today.

I call Deputy Mattie McGrath, who is sharing time.

I am sharing time with Deputies Michael Collins and Michael Healy-Rae.

This report proves that history is a living thing, and unless we face it honestly, peace and the beginning of reconciliation will continue to evade us. I also welcome the apologies made by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister. I listened to their speeches. I also acknowledge today's apologies by the Sisters of Bon Secours and the Archbishop of Tuam and the apology yesterday from the Archbishop of Dublin. It is right well that they may apologise. I am shocked and disgusted, as are many of the survivors and their families and the supporters who stood with them in recent years to get to the truth and to get some semblance of justice.

The scurrilous and scandalous leaking of this report at the weekend to a Sunday newspaper was despicable and disgraceful. When a previous report was leaked when he was in opposition, the Taoiseach was furious. I hope he will demonstrate the same fury now in rooting out the evil person who maliciously leaked this report to the media before any of the victims could see it. It is shocking. We have too much of that going on today, with spin doctors all over the place scurrying around for bits of information and not minding how sensitive, hurtful or wrong that information is. Those are highly paid positions and the people responsible should be rooted out.

The pages of this report cry out with pain and anguish. They tell us of the treatment of women and children that no one here would accept for one minute, not one second, if it was one of our children, a daughter, or any relation. Not for one second would we accept that treatment and nor should we. However, we must accept, painfully, that compassion was often absent in the one place where it was needed most, namely the family, as well as in many of the mother and baby homes. Some good people worked in those homes, but, shamefully, many people working there lacked compassion. That was especially the case in institutions where Christianity was most needed, and that was truly lamentable and shocking. This is not to say that all families treated their daughters, children or grandchildren with such coldness and lack of compassion; they did not. The vast majority of people and families in the period covered by this report were hard-working and decent family people trying to eke out a living and educate their children.

This was post independence and post World Wars. They were very harsh times with little mechanisation or anything else on farmlands or in the country. The balanced nature of the report makes that clear.

I thank all the people who worked on the report. It is such a detailed document. I have not read it all and it would be wrong to say I had. I have only read bits of it. It is a huge job of work and has been eagerly awaited by the victims. I hope they get some solace from it, that we go forward in a properly chartered roadmap and that we have redress and reconciliation.

As I said, the vast majority of people at the time did their best. The report bears that out. However, it remains true to say that something like a conspiracy of silence existed in our communities and our nation when it came to the issues involved. That is very evident. It was a silence that produced endless grief and pain. Courage was present but so too was a willingness to look the other way. We must accept that. Blind eyes were turned all over the place. Apologies, however important they are, feel inadequate, yet they must be made.

This report is also marked by an awareness of complexity and the inability to portray one single group as the villain of the piece. The inaction of the State, the conditions in the county homes and the role the county councils and courts played in the entire sorry saga are also highlighted, and rightly so. There was fault and, in many cases, grievous fault. How can we remedy this pain? How can we bring healing and restitution to all involved? These will be important questions for us to consider. Every life is precious, every life counts and every life deserves the greatest opportunity to flourish. This did not happen for so many and for so long. We must do better or history will judge us as harshly as it has judged our predecessors, and rightly so.

It appears to be the consensus among survivors that they needed time and space to digest the findings of the report before any apology should have been given. The leaking of this report has completely undermined survivors. It was a cruel and deeply cynical move. One way or another, the report was leaked. How did it happen? Who leaked it? Who was given a copy? Surely the State could have at least done this part right but sadly the survivors have been let down yet again.

The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, when in opposition was furious when the Scally report on the cervical cancer scandal was leaked to the media by the previous Government in 2018. He said at the time that people were fed up with spin and game playing and demanded to know who was behind the leak. Fast forward to 2021. A new highly sensitive report is produced. Micheál Martin is now Taoiseach and Head of Government and we have another leak. Many feel the report was leaked in an attempt to distract from the shambolic handling by the Government of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a cynical attempt, they feel, to control the media agenda in the lead-up to the resumption of the Dáil after the Christmas break. If so, this was disgraceful and shameful.

The 3,000-page report is the culmination of a five-year investigation, which was prompted by the discovery of a mass grave of babies and children in Tuam, County Galway. It is estimated that 9,000 children died in 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998, when the last such home closed. The infant mortality rate is said to have been double the national rate, underlining the impact of neglect, malnutrition and disease. Campaigner and human rights lawyer, Dr. Maeve O'Rourke, pointed out that nothing to date had given individuals access to their own files. This has all been an exercise in talking to the public in general terms. There are still no statutory rights and, in practice, people's rights to their own information and their family's files are being denied. We have a situation of enforced disappearance, one of the most serious violations of international law, where someone is institutionalised with the involvement of the State, following which their fate and whereabouts are not disclosed by the State to their family. That needs to be remedied by the Government. This is the type of apology these people need, rather than words that can easily be forgotten. It is time to sit up in this country, to be sincere in our apology, to take stock of the suffering of these people and to take action on the ground that the victims will know is meaningful and measured and will go in some way to ease their suffering.

I am glad to get two minutes to talk about this sorrowful saga, which has gone on for many years in our State. First, I ask, like others, who leaked the report. Was it strategy by the Government? How did it happen? Who leaked it and who was given copies of it? I welcome the State and other bodies saying they are sorry but I believe the law of the land should be applied wherever it can be in any cases that need to be remedied or sorted out. To go back only a few years, we saw how willing was the State to get involved in County Kerry with the Kerry babies case. We know what wrongs happened there, yet the Garda was used to the maximum there. The murder squad and the highest people in that force were down there at that time.

It amazes me that this saga continued until 1998. I did not know that. The Government Members voted a few weeks ago to hide and stash away details of people for 30 years. They got it in the neck, however, from people around the country and were sorry a couple of days later. Now they are trying to remedy themselves. It is a fundamental right of any person to know who he or she is, where he or she came from, who his or her parents were or as much knowledge as can be obtained. People are entitled to know that and it should not be hidden away from them anywhere.

What happened was wrong. Pregnant girls were forced into mother and baby homes and even into county homes and boys and girls were forced to go out to work as hard as they could for wealthy farmers. That was wrong and on top of that, they were not treated like human beings. Many of them were fed in the yard or the dairy or their dinner was handed out the window to them. That was wrong and I resent and reject those people who did those bad things to other people because human life is precious. Everyone has the same right to live and should be treated equally. Clearly, these people in our past were not so treated. If there are any people still wandering around from 1998 or back to 1988 that have done wrong, they should be apprehended and brought to task for it.

This document I have to hand is what the report looks like. I hold it up to show survivors because they do not have it. It is the executive summary with the recommendations and one or two other things. Not a single survivor has it. I have it since yesterday, when it was put in the pigeonholes of Deputies.

I am not sure whether the media colluded with the Government or whether it was pure ignorance on their part but in every bulletin, they said the report would be made available to survivors prior to us getting it. That has not happened. I see two female Ministers of State are present here today and I would love them to address this point. No report was ever given to the survivors. They were invited to a webinar, where they were told the Government's version and then they were invited to download 3,000 pages.

The Government has had the report since October. Members were told there was urgency to the legislation that went through the Dáil and the Government forced the legislation through. That report has sat with it since then. The three wise men running the country - in a worse moment I might refer to the three unwise men - decided to hold on to that report, to still not give it to the survivors and to stand up here today with sweet words and tell us they are apologising.

I welcome the Taoiseach's apology but I will place it in perspective. I will deal with 21 years very quickly. In 1999, we had an apology from Bertie Ahern for the treatment of 15,000 to 20,000 children in industrial schools, reformatory schools and what were called orphanages.

I am only picking some of the reports across those 21 years. That apology was followed by the Ferns report in 2005 and the Ryan report in 2009, which found that sexual abuse was endemic in industrial and reformatory schools for boys. Girls and boys suffered emotional abuse on a great scale. In 2009, we had the Murphy report; in 2011, we had the Cloyne report; and in 2013, we had the Magdalen report of an interdepartmental committee, following by a review under Mr. Justice Quirke and the establishment of an ex gratia scheme, which was subsequently found by the Ombudsman to have been maladministered. We then set up Caranua. It was appalling to name it that and call it a "new friend" when it was really the old enemy in disguise. This was followed in 2017 by a technical report on the Tuam site, since which nothing has happened.

I wish to pay tribute to a number of people. Mr. Mike Milotte published a book in 1997, entitled Banished Babies: The Secret History of Ireland's Baby Export Business, which was republished in 2012. RTÉ ran documentaries by Ms Mary Raftery, Ms Patricia Burke Brogan and Mr. Cónall Ó Fátharta.

Leading to this report was Ms Catherine Corless's discovery through painstaking work paid for by herself that there were 798 bodies. What was the response from the Sisters of Bon Secours at the time through Ms Terry Prone, the organisation's PRO? It was that not a single bone would be found and that not a single child would be found. There was a longer press release from the organisation.

This report comes almost six years since the commission was established by a Fine Gael-Labour Government in February 2015. We have waited and there have been seven interim reports, most of which were published belatedly. The sixth interim report, which dealt with the database, was not published until yesterday. I thank the Government for publishing it, but the Taoiseach has given no explanation for it not being published at the time. It refers to a document relating to Bessborough that was not included in it.

I look at this report and struggle for words, but I owe it to the survivors to find words. The Government has heaped abuse on abuse through the manner in which this subject has been addressed. It might change its approach from today with its full apology, which I welcome, and quick action in terms of a compensation scheme and proper supports. I doubt it will, but I will work with and support it in that. Forgive me for my lack of trust, but it is based on personal, family and professional experience and having taken the trouble to read each of the reports that I referred to and more besides. My trust is stretched, and if I am just a Deputy, how does the Government think the survivors who were sitting in on the webinar yesterday were left feeling when the Government's language and the language of the media told them that they had the report when they did not? The language of the patriarch and the three unwise men continues to tell women what is good for them and, indeed, the men who spent time in these homes.

Regarding this report, I will pay tribute to the survivors who came forward. Deputy Kelly mentioned a figure of more than 1,000. It has been difficult for us all to come to terms with this report quickly, but there were not 1,000. Rather, just over 500 came forward to the confidential committee and told their stories. My experience is that people who spent time in institutions rarely talk about it. A lifetime might go by and they will not talk about it. There are intergenerational consequences. When the 500 came forward to tell their stories, they did so in trust.

The story jumps off the pages - the role of the church, the priest and the county council. Indeed, the Tuam home distinguishes itself by being one of the worst in the country, and although the county council was not actively involved, the home was under its control. It was also under the control of the county manager, who took an active role. There was even a policy there whereby if the woman got pregnant a second time, she was destined for the Magdalen laundry, not the mother and baby home. Can the Taoiseach imagine that? Listen to what I am saying about the county manager being actively involved.

The women tell a story in this report of rape and sexual assault. Nearly 12% of the women in the homes were under 18 years of age. Some were as young as 12. However, the commission found that there was no evidence that they were forced by the church or the State. It is incomprehensible to draw that conclusion or the many other conclusions I have great difficulty with based on the testimonies of the women when they told their stories. The priest jumps off the page. Solicitors jump off the page. GPs who phoned the doctors and priests jump off the page. Some of the sexual abuse was carried out by family members, including cousins and uncles, and priests. All of that is set out in this report, but according to the commission's conclusions, there was no evidence of compulsion. Either we believe the women or we do not. If we do not, then we are adding to their hurt and their fear that they would not be believed. I will use my few minutes in this debate to say that I absolutely believe the survivors who have come forward despite these difficult memories. The commission tells us that there was no evidence of compulsion or forced adoption. All of the evidence given confirms there was.

I would like the Taoiseach to have dealt with this issue in a more nuanced manner in his contribution. I do not expect him to have read all of the report - none of us could have in the time allowed - but the inconsistencies in it are nothing short of shocking. The writing is unprofessional and amateurish in parts and there are inconsistencies in how people are referred to. Sometimes they are called "people", sometimes they are called "witnesses", sometimes they are called "other witnesses", sometimes they are called "a woman", sometimes they are called "a survivor". There is no consistency. If something bad was said, the narrative sought to balance it by finishing on a positive note. I find the whole narrative repulsive. What I do not find repulsive are the stories of the women, which I have read and with which I was familiar.

The spin continues as regards the way this report was undertaken. That spin came from the then Taoiseach in 2017, which the current Taoiseach is continuing with today. The then Taoiseach stated that the nuns and priests did not come in the middle of the night and take our children. They did on some occasions, but not often because what happened was far more subtle and controlled than that. The powers that be were the church, with politicians playing a subservient role. I will use the county council in Galway as an example because it jumps off the pages. It held its meetings in the home. The absence of records and the appalling mortality rate were known at the time, but the Taoiseach is saying now that we are all responsible. I am not responsible. My family is not responsible. The people I know are not responsible. Those least responsible were those put into the homes. The Taoiseach should not stand here today and expect me to listen to him with patience when he tells us that society did that. It was done by a society composed of the powerful against the powerless. As with the old distinction between public and private medicine, if someone had the money to pay and came from a middle class family, she was treated differently. She paid her way and did not spend as long in the home.

In Tuam, children stayed until they were seven years of age if they were girls and five or six if they were boys. Among many other gaps, what is absent in the report is a failure to acknowledge the importance of bonding and the implications for human interaction of those bonds being broken. There is a dismissal of how children were taken from mothers and an acceptance that adoption was much better. There are statements to that effect in the report - that children were better off being adopted than staying in mother and baby homes.

I could go on. We are being shown more leniency today, but I will not dwell and take it. I have enough said for today. I find the report's narrative disturbing. I accept the Taoiseach's apology. I would like to see it being accompanied by meaningful action, including swift redress, and learning from the debacle of the Magdalen redress scheme and Caranua.

Stop making distinctions between children who were accompanied by their mothers and children who were not. Let us accept that this was an inhuman unacceptable system. The one occasion on which the word "inhuman" is used in this report, strangely enough, is with regard to England, which took mothers and their children if they were lucky and have them. The only time the word "inhuman" is used is in connection with the Catholic charities in England that sent the mothers back to Ireland. Imagine, they were repatriated. Does the Taoiseach know what that means? Generally, it means returned. In this instance it means that they were forced to return to Ireland. The word "inhuman" is used simply on that occasion and at no other point in the report.

I hope this is the start of a truly meaningful debate and action where language means something and the Government actually listens to the people on the ground and never, ever repeats a webinar or the leaking of a report so it can control the narrative. It is simply disgraceful.

I thank Deputy Connolly. That concludes statements on the report of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes for today. I understand it is intended to return to the matter in the near future.