Institutional Burials (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister to the House. It is great to see her here. I thank her for coming here to give this matter the attention it deserves. I acknowledge the Civil Engagement Group for its proposal. It is one I support on the basis that the group has made a strong case here on the restrictive nature of the Institutional Burials Act 2022. I want to remember for a moment Catherine Corless, the absolutely fierce objections she faced when she unveiled the information she had found in her endeavours, and the frustration she experienced in the process. I visited her twice and walked the site twice. You could not but be moved by the compelling story and the evidence she uncovered. I am familiar with people who resided in Bessborough and had tragic lives there. Many of them are involved in various aspects of political life. Senators may not know it but there are some of them working here in the Oireachtas. Others are in other areas of public life. Some have commented on, and many have written extensively about, their experiences in Bessborough and those of their families. The planning issues around Bessborough are well known. The Minister, as a Fianna Fáil representative, will be very familiar with the Bessborough story. The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, is from the part of the world in question and took an exceptional interest in the story and responded proactively. We know what developers wanted to do there. We know what was proposed to interfere with the site and we know the sensitivities related to it. Ultimately, a certain amount of common sense prevailed and public opinion mattered because it had been cranked up. There are still issues outstanding regarding the site. Clearly, there are issues around children in care. I think I shared with this House before a story on which I do not want to go into too much detail. I received a visit here from a woman who had information and logs related to burials of children, some of them in existing private cemeteries within Dublin. There was no information other than the evidence and records presented to me. I immediately informed the then Minister, Katherine Zappone, and discussed the matter with her. I formally lodged the papers with the appropriate authorities. That was important because we all know that many people who were institutionalised – it might be ourselves – want to know their history, where they have come from and where they belonged. It may just be a question of linking up some dots. One of the clearest things in the logs was that many of the children in question died very young. A number of them died later. Anyone who takes the time, like I have because I have an interest in these issues, will know from the 1911 census the number of children who came out of institutions, because we know where the institutions were. We also know that many children died in them. It is too easy to say that everyone was weak and sickly. There has to be an answer. Questions have to be asked for any child who was in care and disappeared, and who was either illegally buried or placed somewhere unknown. I shared with the House before that I once spoke with an 80-year-old woman from Galway who told me she lost a child nearly at full term. When she asked the nuns in County Galway for an opportunity to hold the child - it was a Sunday - she was told not to be ridiculous. They said the remains had been burnt and sent out in the wheelbarrow to the gardener. She was 80 years of age and had never told her children this story. It took her until she was 80 years of age to share her grief and concern with me. I was effectively a stranger. This is a sensitive issue and I appreciate that the Minister knows that. We all know that. I want to concentrate on the process. It is a pity and it is disappointing how this has been handled. It is indicative of how the Government treats the Opposition and this House. I have been here for over ten years now. Those of us who will be interested in these things will know there is actually a log of the legislation over that period, certainly for the terms of the last two coalition Governments. Everything has been blocked. This is not constructive parliamentary democracy. I do not like to say that. Coalition Governments with big majorities have an impact on parliamentary democracy. We see it all the time. I ask the Minister to explain why this is the case. This is a simple Bill with a definition and four sections. It seeks to amend sections 2 and 7 of the principal Act. Section 4 relates to the Short Title, collective citation, construction and commencement. It is not a lot to deal with. I am disappointed it is not being accepted. If we block democracy, parliamentary debate and parliamentary engagement, all of which are important, we will be blocking something important and it will be very sad. We should not undervalue or understate that. I am open to correction but I believe what is going to happen tonight is that the Government's amendment will be put at the end of the debate, after the Minister speaks. If the Government's amendment is passed, the Civil Engagement Group's Bill will be removed from the Order Paper. It will be at least six months before a similar Bill can be introduced. It will not be possible to restore the original Bill to the Order Paper. I have a question that the Minister might address in her response if she believes it is appropriate. Did the Government consider proposing that the Bill should be deemed to be read a Second Time in six or 12 months? That the Bill is just being guillotined and cut dead is disappointing and a sad day for parliamentary democracy. Is the issue under discussion to be yet another one on which debate is curtailed and ended? I understand that the Bill acknowledges that there are restrictions in the current Act, and that is why I am supporting it. It is a reasonable measure. As a minimum, we should have parliamentary engagement, dialogue and debate and ultimately make a decision. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-25