Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2023-05-23
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Paul Gavan (SF), Labour Panel

I genuinely do not understand how the Minister can justify excluding people who spent less than six months in these institutions. Like others, I am extremely frustrated that when we have asked him this question previously, instead of answering it directly and explaining how he justifies excluding those people, he came up with a formula of words about the process but not the rationale. Like Senator Boyhan, I am incredibly frustrated that there apparently can be passionate all-party agreement in committee that these people should not be excluded, yet, unless I hear differently, our colleagues from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are going to support that exclusion this evening. They are even going to support excluding a report on the topic. That is an absolute disgrace. There is no other way to put it.
The Minister has the power to act on this. It is his decision. He will be known after this Bill has passed as the Minister who excluded nearly 30,000 survivors from redress. That is what his legacy will be. I ask him just to answer the question. How does he justify excluding these people?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2023-05-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:55+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-05-23