Institutional Burials Bill 2022: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2022-06-28
============================================================

Anne Rabbitte (FF), Galway East

I cannot support the amendment as I do not believe that it is necessary. The Bill provides that before an identification programme begins a director will hold a public information campaign to raise awareness about the programme, and outline how eligible family members and spouses or civil partners of a deceased person can register an interest in participating, objecting to another person's participation or their interest in receiving remains.
It has always been the intention of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, that the information campaign would target persons within and outside the State and that they would be in plain English. I am happy to give the undertaking, along with the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, to take effect here today. I do not think that this needs to be included in the legislation. Sustained engagement with survivors and former residents of the mother and baby homes and county homes is central to the delivery of all elements of the Government’s action plan for survivors and former residents of mother and baby homes and county home institutions. The Minister has engaged with survivors on aspects of all ongoing work regularly. He is immensely grateful to all those who continue to give so generously of their time to engage with the State on these issues. He is committed to continuing this work in a manner that is transparent and accessible to surviving communities, both at home and abroad. I hope that speaks to the Senator’s point on communication both at home and abroad. To that end, the Department continues to engage with the Department of Foreign Affairs to utilise the invaluable resources that is our network of embassies and consulates right across the globe to ensure that we can reach as many of the survivors living abroad as possible.

---

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/2022-06-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-06-28