Is the proposal for dealing with Thursday's business agreed to?

The House passed a motion this morning to extend the life of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. The Government facilitated this by not opposing the motion. On foot of the motion, the Minister needs to update the House or introduce the necessary legislation tomorrow. We have called on him to do so and we will call a vote.

The debate by all Deputies tomorrow will be curtailed by a vote today by a reduced number of Members. Deputies will not be able to table or vote on valid amendments tomorrow because a reduced number of Deputies voted today to curtail tomorrow's debate.

I support Deputy Gannon's call with regard to the mother and baby homes commission. It would be an act of extraordinary bad faith, even by the standards of this Government, to cynically allow a motion to be passed by the Dáil with no intention of acting on it. The matters set out in the course of the debate are of the utmost seriousness. They deserve the serious attention of the Government. At a minimum, the Minister, who failed to answer core questions that were put to him by the proposer of the motion and other Members, must come to the House, answer those questions comprehensively and put minds at rest. I am very deeply concerned about this turn of events, and many survivors and advocates are also distressed and alarmed by it. I support Deputy Gannon and I ask the Government to do the honourable and right thing.

I spoke on this earlier and I alluded to the fact that it is very strange that the Government is not extending the life of the commission, yet it accepted the motion. This is playing politics at a very cynical level. It might look good for the Government and get it off the hook with its backbenchers, but it sends a distressing message to the victims, their families and their advocates. We are playing games here with people's lives and it is just unacceptable.

I support the Deputy's request on this matter. Language is meaningless if we accept what the Minister said today, that on the one hand he was not opposing the motion but, on the other, he gave no clarification regarding the extension of the commission. We need clarity and we can only have that in an open discussion in the Dáil, in which the Minister and Taoiseach clarify the matter and we are allowed to ask questions.

The Government is motivated primarily and solely by the needs and concerns of the survivors, and to do right by them. That is informing the Government's policy and its response to the commission's recommendations. The Government is focused on delivering on those recommendations, as is the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, particularly in the context of the information and tracing Bill, which we are anxious to have before the House as quickly as possible. The interdepartmental group is working on the historical recognition redress scheme. The motion has been amended to include enhanced medical cards. That is part of the recommendations and is something we want to do. We certainly would not oppose that. We do not want to divide the House on these issues. Nobody on the Government side is playing political games here. There was no legislation before the House today.

We were not allowed. It was ruled out of order.

During Private Members' business, Members can bring forward legislative proposals. It could have been brought forward, published or engaged on last week.

What is important is the Minister's statement regarding the retrieval of the tapes and the potential for the tapes to be available. There is more work to be done. In my view, the bona fides of the Minister cannot be questioned with regard to doing right by the survivors. I heard some of the contributions and it is wrong to cast aspersions or to try to create a division in which some are more virtuous than others on this issue. That is not right, and I detected that in some of the contributions I heard. Many people, the survivors of these institutions, want access to information, once and for all. As an Oireachtas and a Government, we must also get on with doing what many people need to get done on a range of issues. We are committed to doing that.

Obviously, the Minister will engage further with the Oireachtas on the range of issues that are covered. His statements, last night and today, although I was not in the House earlier, regarding the retrieval of the tapes are significant and should provide an opportunity on that issue. The Deputies must acknowledge that there are significant challenges regarding the issue of the commission, which the Minister has been pursuing in respect of getting responses, and regarding the Data Protection Commission's engagement with the commission.

On the points raised by Deputy McNamara, these are the mechanisms that have been provided so we can do our business in the House in the context of Covid-19. I understand the Deputy's reservations, but I do not believe there is any way out of it.

The motion that was passed today pertains to extending the commission of investigation into the mother and baby homes, which dissolves a few days hence. The fact that the House passed the motion requires the Minister to act and to tell us what he is going to do. We must create space for that and that is the reason we will push for a division on this issue.