Legislation to establish a redress scheme for survivors of mother and baby homes passed through the Dáil on Wednesday night and will now go to the Seanad.
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022 was passed by 73 votes to 62.
The bill provides for redress to all mothers and babies who spent “not less than” six months in institutions, and not to those children who were “boarded out”.
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said all applications for redress under the scheme will be “addressed as quickly as is possible”.
“While I understand concerns that the absence of specified timelines within the legislation could be interpreted as opening the door to long delays in processing applications, this is absolutely not our intention,” he said.
“We expect that the vast majority of applications will be readily verifiable through the official records and will be processed quickly to payment offers.
“In a scheme of this scale, however, we must also be cognisant that a limited number of applications will not be as easily verifiable, owing, perhaps, to inadequate official records.”
Labour TD Seán Sherlock said he could not understand why up to 40 per cent of survivors, including children who spent less than six months in an institution and those who were boarded out, were excluded from the scheme.
“The very fact that if a child is resident for 180 days that they receive a sum or have some eligibility for a scheme, but that anybody who was there less than six months get zero is completely unfair,” he said.
“I have no doubt in my mind that this will have to be revisited again at some future date and I’ve no doubt in my mind that this is an issue that will come before the courts, as sure as night follows day.”
Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns said there was “no valid reason” not to recognise all survivors and that the first months of life “matter”.
“Today, this Minister, this Government and every single Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party backbencher, a few independent TDs who quietly support them, will vote to exclude 40 per cent of survivors,” she said.
“You will put on the record of the Dáil Éireann that survivors of illegal adoption, forced labour, illegal medical trials, forced family separation and sexual and emotional abuse deserve nothing.
“That will be your legacy when the history books of mother and baby homes are updated to cover this shameful scheme and those who support it.”
Speaking earlier, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said 24,000 survivors were being left behind by the Government’s scheme due to the six-month rule.
“It is scandalous that this exclusionary discriminatory provision remains in the legislation,” she said.
“The scheme creates a hierarchy of victims by taking the view that some mothers and their children suffered less than others.
“The very idea that a child who spent less than six months in a home suffered no damage or injury and is not entitled to redress is just unacceptable. The Government is saying that these children didn’t spend long enough in a home to suffer trauma from being forcibly separated from their mother. That is wrong.”