Mother and baby homes commissioners
Deputy Holly Cairns questions why a commissioner appeared at an Oxford seminar but not before the Oireachtas committee, and challenges findings that contradicted survivors’ testimony. The Tánaiste says testimony and proof are different and insists commissioners should come forward and accept scrutiny.
It is hard for many to understand why one of the mother and baby home commissioners participated in an Oxford University seminar yesterday to discuss the commission's report but would not come before the Oireachtas committee. I welcome and totally agree with what the Tánaiste said that there is no excuse for this. I have written to the committee requesting that it invite them in again.
It is harder to understand how the findings of the commission's report were in so many cases completely contradictory to the testimony of survivors, for example, that there was no evidence of forced adoption. It is impossible to understand how the Government has not rejected the commission's report. The Tánaiste stated that if the commission discounted testimonies, it is a problem. I can tell the Tánaiste that it did. It referred to witness testimonies as contaminated. The commissioner yesterday described State files as an utter disgrace and local authority files as another disgrace, but they were not considered contaminated. Will the Government repudiate the report and produce the underlying archive to give survivors the administrative files and their personal data? We need the dedicated archive. Crucially, we need to repudiate the report. Survivors were denied the archive detail. This report is rewriting people's lived experience and Irish history.
Comment on this
As I said earlier, and I know the Deputy would agree with this, there is a difference between evidence and testimony on the one hand, which may well be true, and proof of fact which is something different. Obviously, any commission of inquiry or investigation would have to have a burden of proof that is above the level of testimony or evidence. It would have to be challenged. It would have to be backed up. However, I am stating the obvious in that regard. We all appreciate that.
I can only repeat what I said earlier. It is now beyond time that the members of the commission come forward, accept the invitation to appear before an Oireachtas committee, explain their report and answer the questions the Deputy is legitimately asking here in the House - they are the ones who can best answer how they came to the findings they did and the processes they followed - and meet with the survivors. All of that is now long overdue.