Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 February 2019
44. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the reason for the extension of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes; if this will be the final extension to the investigation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6984/19]
View answerThe Commission submitted a Fourth Interim Report in December of last year. In it the Commission advised that it would not be able to issue its final report within the previously agreed time frame. It requested an extension of one year in order to complete its work in full.
The Government agreed to this extension request and the Commission is now due to submit its final report by February 2020.
In making their case for an extension, the Commission outlined the sheer scale of the work involved in investigating the matters set out under its terms of reference.
Up to December 2018, the Confidential Committee of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission had met with 519 former residents or others with connections to the institutions under investigation. When the Commission requested the extension, it indicated that there were still 26 individuals awaiting hearings.
The terms of reference envisaged that the Confidential Committee would have concluded its meetings and completed its report of this aspect of its work within 18 months of commencement. Clearly there were more people than anticipated that wished to meet the Confidential Committee. I believe that as far as possible this needed to be accommodated.
In its report the Commission acknowledges the extensive material provided by the Department of Health and my own Department. While the report states that the first tranche of discovery was delivered in March 2017, the Commission has acknowledged that this is incorrect and in fact the discovery of records commenced in February 2016.
This involved considering over 340,000 inactive files. 730,000 individual pages were digitised and reviewed for relevance. My Department has delivered over 1000 digitised files to the Commission.
The Commission has reported that it is painstakingly analysing these and matching them with the records from the institutions. Their report predicts that “This should provide as comprehensive an account as is possible of the pathways of the children concerned”.
This is reassuring and significant. Hopefully, we will learn in some detail what happened to mothers and to the children who were born in the Mother and Baby Homes.
These children are now adults in their middle age and older. They want answers and they want them soon. I expect that the careful comprehensive and extensive analysis will deliver these answers in the form of robust findings in twelve months’ time.
While I am disappointed with the delay I believe that not granting the extension would have led the Commission to submit incomplete reports. That would not be in anyone’s interest.
I am pleased that the Commission will submit a detailed report on burials arrangements for people who died in these institutions by 15th March.
It is tragic that this is a very real element of what we need to know about what happened in Mother and Baby Homes. We have committed to finding out and that is the next chapter that we will deal with in the coming weeks.
