Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this very important debate on Bethany Home. I thank and commend all those involved in the campaign for truth and justice. I fully support the delivery of a State apology, a redress mechanism and access to personal records for a small number of surviving men and women of Bethany Home. That is what this motion is about. If we are all serious about truth, justice, equality and respect for human dignity, we must support this motion. I urge everybody to look at the details of what is going on in this debate.

From 1922 to 1972, Bethany Home in Rathgar was a maternity home, children's home and place of detention for women on remand or convicted of crimes and referred by the courts. It was subject to inspection under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. I recognise the State's failure to vindicate the rights of sick and dying Bethany children after receiving reports of neglect by the deputy chief medical adviser. We know that 219 Bethany Home children died between 1922 and 1949. These same children lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery in Dublin. I also acknowledge the Department of Local Government, public health inspector and media reports detailing the very serious neglect of children in Bethany Home and of children sent to nurse mothers. I consider most serious the exclusion of the surviving men and women of Bethany Home from the residential institutions redress scheme which provided for fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in other institutions subject to State regulation or inspection. Tonight, I urge all Deputies to listen very carefully and to support this motion. I urge the Minister and Government to listen to the details in this motion and do their best to support this cause.

Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)
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I also rise to support this motion. I am very sympathetic partly because of the precedents and partly because it involves members of a minority who feel that there has been some discrimination against them on this issue. The State has available to it a redress scheme to make the necessary compensation which would be fairly appropriate to use in this case. If it does not qualify, I see no reason why redress should not be given to the Bethany Home survivors because of the small amounts of money involved.

My limited knowledge of this has found that there seems to be consensus about Bethany Home having been a home for cruelty and neglect and for the State also having been aware of it. Regardless of whether the State is responsible or not, it should put its hands up and say that those who have suffered in Bethany Home are entitled to some sort of apology. The very fact that 219 unmarked graves were discovered in 2010 should alert us to the startling nature of what was happening in those homes. The very fact that so many children died so young and that there was such a high level of mortality should also alert us to that. There is absolutely overwhelming evidence that they died from diseases, including malnutrition, from which they would not have died had they not been neglected in this way.

I believe the State has a responsibility even if it is for the very simple matter that they lived in the State and the State did not look after them in the way a state should have done - in the same way as everyone else. I am sure the Minister has read the story told by Derek Leinster. I do not know whether it is typical but I suspect it is. It involves his mother going to Bethany Home four months before he was born and leaving him there four months after he was born. According to him, he was then delivered to a new home in an extraordinarily unhealthy condition where he said he had scabs on his head and all sorts of other ailments and was lucky to survive. If that is a typical case, it is very cruel and wrong not to compensate, recognise and apologise.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is inexplicable and frankly inexcusable that Government will not extend the redress and apology it finally and belatedly gave the survivors of the Magdalen laundries and other institutions where children or mothers suffered abuse to children who went through Bethany Home. It is unacceptable. It is very disappointing that the Government seems to be dancing around semantics, finding excuses and seeking to make frankly trivial and unsustainable distinctions between one and the other in order to avoid giving that long overdue apology and redress.

The criteria that applied to the Residential Institutions Redress Board were the following:

Were you resident in an industrial school, reformatory school, children's home, special hospital or a similar institution at any time while you were under the age of 18? Were you subjected to sexual, physical or emotional abuse or serious neglect while you were resident in that institution? Have you suffered physical, psychiatric or other injury consistent with that abuse?

I appeal to the Minister of State to support the call made in this motion and back away from her current position.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
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Deputy Dowds is sharing time with Deputies Buttimer, Durkan, Fitzpatrick and Feighan, with six minutes each.

Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I regret having to speak on this motion, as it refers to another sorry tale from our past of how women in particular who were out of kilter with the accepted norms of society in the first half of the 20th century were treated.

In certain respects, the story of Bethany Home undoubtedly has similarities with the story of the conditions that women in Catholic institutions went through. It is a story of women who were convicted of petty crimes or had children out of wedlock. I acknowledge the damning fact that approximately 220 children died in Bethany Home between 1922 and 1949. I also acknowledge the work done by colleagues, including the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, as well as the work done by Mr. Neil Meehan and Mr. Derek Leinster in uncovering and drawing attention to this sad story, respectively. I acknowledge the fact of the unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery.

I do not know all of the rights and wrongs of the situation, but from hearing Mr. Meehan speaking on the subject, it would seem clear that certain periods, particularly in the late 1930s and early 1940s when Dr. Winslow Sterling Berry was deputy chief medical adviser, were bad times for the home's infant mortality rate. However, it is important to accept the Minister of State's point, in that many people working at Bethany Home did so with the best intentions.

One of the most difficult issues relating to Bethany Home is that of redress. I have had conversations with the Minister of State and other Ministers concerning this question. While I regret the decision taken, I understand that, given the significant financial restraints under which the country is, Bethany Home could not be included in the redress scheme. It is not so much because of the numbers involved, as those are small, but because of the possible knock-on effects of such a decision.

I hope to attend the service being organised by the Bethany survivors in Mount Jerome on 2 April. If possible, I ask that the State apologise to those who were so dreadfully treated in Bethany.

Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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In rising to speak on this motion, like many Deputies I regret that I must do so. I was struck by the Minister of State's closing remarks last night. I commend her and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, on their work. I want the House to reflect on the Minister of State's closing words, when she stated: "I am not here to defend those who ran Bethany Home...but I am certainly not in a position to condemn them out of hand in the way proposed by Sinn Féin." If this motion does anything, it will heighten awareness and allow us to respect more those who had to endure being put into a home.

In many ways, what we have seen over the past decade or so has been a continuing narrative describing across a generation and many decades the unfortunate treatment of those men and women on the margins of society. Industrial schools, residential institutions and Magdalen laundries are just a few of the high profile examples of neglect, mistreatment and abuse of those on the margins of this society, in many cases at the hands of people who were put on a pillar - members of the clergy, those whom the State believed were immune from prosecution or even being considered guilty of wrong doing and, in some cases, family members. For many years, these transgressions against human decency were hidden, often known but sheltered from full view. They were unspeakable and not to be spoken about.

Thankfully, that day has passed. We can be thankful for the way this House and the Government have approached the horrific examples of inhumane treatment. I will pose a challenge for the Members opposite. Rather than dividing the House, they should judge the Government on its record on the Magdalen laundries and the report on child clerical abuse. It is a question of respect for the human decency of all citizens, given the abuse and neglect of the most vulnerable. If we were to examine and reflect upon what we have learned from the reports and investigations, we would see that the House and the Government have been open and transparent in their coverage and treatment of people and in what they have done for those people.

There is also a wider societal debate on how we care for those who are not as fortunate as people who have adequate support structures. We have matured as a society. We are now open and honest about confronting our past while recognising that wrongs must be corrected.

In all of these instances of abuse and mistreatment, there have been trends. It was most often those on the margins who were subjected to degrading treatment. People in industrial schools and residential institutions were often those who did not have what was perceived as being the traditional, robust family support structure. Some made what may have been considered minor transgressions for which they were made pay to an inordinate extent. This was the shame of the Ireland of yesteryear. The church and the State cast an aspersion on young women who got pregnant, on men and women who committed suicide and on people who did very silly things. They were made to pay an extraordinary price. I hope that this generation of Irish citizens will be more mature in confronting societal norms and views. The society of yesteryear had an idealised image of people, how they should live and how they should be perceived. Those of us, then and now, who fall short of the ideal are often shunned and made to feel outcasts. That is not the Ireland that I want to see portrayed or in which I want to live. There is a duty on us all, including members of the Government and church leaders North and South, to ensure that the Ireland in which we live is free from that type of awful behaviour.

Our treatment of people on the margins of society went beyond the examples I have mentioned. It also extended to mental health and the incarceration for years of people, many of whom should never have been put into institutions. Society's mistreatment extended to children, who suffered abuse that was hidden and covered up. Society's mistreatment also extended to those who happened to be gay or lesbian or were pregnant outside of marriage.

Again, because they fell short of the ideal, they could not lead a life that was true to their identity.

We must never again allow a situation where those who live on the edge of society are affected and are judged wrongly and badly. Tonight we are discussing Bethany Home and those who found themselves there - women on the margins of society, women who found themselves in the criminal justice system who should never have been put there, women who were pregnant and who should never have been put away and the children of these women who were there for a number of years before being fostered. I heard the reply given by the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, last night. I refer back to my remarks regarding the deputy leader of Sinn Féin who wants to forget her past and who should forget her past and apologise to the Irish State.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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My past? To what past is the Deputy referring?

Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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She should apologise as a member of the party to which she belongs. She should not divide the House and-----

Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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That is scurrilous.

Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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-----should not use the people who are the most important matter here as a political pawn. I appeal to her not to divide the House tonight.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank my colleague for affording me the time to speak on this important issue. I support the point made by Deputy Buttimer, that the House should not divide on this issue.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Then withdraw the amendment.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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There has been enough division in this society over the years. We have had enough of examples of neglect, hardship and revisiting the scenes of the past to illustrate, beyond a shadow of doubt, that things happened with which we would not wish to be associated. They continued to happen up to very recent times.

It goes without saying that there is considerable doubt about the standards that applied in Bethany Home. Members on all sides of the House are concerned about this. We have expressed that view and we will continue to express it. I hope that at a later stage the Government, having considered everything, will introduce a Bill that will address the issues in a fundamental way. It should not be on the basis of the small number of people involved in this instance, because that is not the issue. Regardless of whether the number is great or small, if an injustice has been done to the extent that is suggested, and I believe it has, our society must address it.

However, it must be remembered that our society during those times was harsh. It had no regard at all for the rights of individuals, of unmarried mothers or of people with disabilities, physical or mental. There are scores of people in homes and institutions who were committed to them for their lifetimes. They were ill-treated by their detention in the first place and by the failure of the State to provide assistance from any quarter to recognise their position and their plight. I do not shirk from the issue before us any more than anybody else does. I believe our society was harsh and uncaring, but there was also a great deal of poverty in this country at that time and there were many competing demands. Issues that appear to be very pertinent, simple and straightforward were not so simple and straightforward then. There were very serious compelling issues competing with them at that time and there was poverty all around. What are now regarded as basic minimum rights were not even on the horizon at that time.

With hindsight, we must look again at the extent and degree to which deprivation took place, rights were not recognised, abuse and mistreatment took place and detention took place against the will of those detained and beyond their power to do anything about it. There was deprivation in institutions such as Bethany Home. We must look at that again in a cold, hard light and make a decision on it. As a society we must make a decision on what we stand for. Do we accept that the things that happened in the past were all right then and that we should ignore them now? Do we accept that those things were wrong then, that it was wrong of society to condone them then and that we must do something about it now, or do we just ignore it? There is something very important in all of that.

In recent times we have tended to look back on history, both recent and earlier, and try to airbrush it into what is acceptable. I am not making a political point on this. I could talk on this subject for as long as anybody wishes, as I am sure you can too, a Cheann Comhairle. Many things happened in this country that were appalling. We should never try to justify them, sweep them under the carpet, walk away from them or fail to accept responsibility for them. Our society has the responsibility. We must accept responsibility for the things that happened which did not have our consent, because we were not there, but did have the consent of people who either judged harshly or felt they had the right to judge harshly in those circumstances. Now is the time to look at those issues again.

I listened carefully to the speech of the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, last night and I congratulate her on it. She examined and identified the issues in a very impartial way and presented the case in a way which clearly indicates that something must be done to address them, regardless of who raised them.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is not what she said.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I listened to her speech and also to the speeches from the other side of the House. It is important to point out that we all feel the same way. It is not just the preserve of Members sitting on the opposite side of the House who suddenly have a conscience and bring this to our attention as if nobody else cares. We all care. We all know about these situations and have dealt with them previously, and we continue to deal with them. We also continue to deal with situations that emerged from our more recent history and we have an obligation to deal with them in a fair and impartial fashion. That means we must accept our history, culture and lifestyle, warts and all, and try to do something about it, not try to paint each other in an unsavoury light and, as a result, attempt to gain a political advantage.

I support the call for the House not to divide, and I hope the parties opposite will accept that. I ask the Government to introduce a Bill in due course, having considered the entirety of what has been discussed, which it is to be hoped will do something similar to what has been suggested.

Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Bethany Home was established prior to the foundation of the State as a private organisation with a Protestant ethos to provide charitable assistance to women of all denominations on the margins of society. It closed in 1972. While it continued to provide a range of assistance, it evolved primarily into a mother and baby home. Women would usually go there a few months before the baby was due, give birth and leave a few months later without their child. Most of the children were fostered, and there was no legal provision for adoption until the 1950s.

Bethany Home was registered as a maternity home and was inspected under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. The inspection records indicate that in addition to being a maternity home, it was also a children's home for children up to three years of age. Infant mortality rates were very high at the home and children suffered from various conditions associated with poverty. It is not clear that conditions in Bethany Home were worse than elsewhere at the time, when a significant proportion of the population lived in conditions of extreme poverty. The number of children who died in the home is quite shocking. Up to the 1950s, poverty and diseases associated with poverty were widespread in Ireland. Children without family support could endure serious hardship. Infant mortality rates were approximately 20 times higher than they are now. The figures for those who were malnourished and subject to diseases and a lack of hygiene were even higher.

The Bethany survivors group is a group of individuals who were born in Bethany Home and who perceive they have disadvantages as a result. Some only spent a short time there, less than a month, and all would have left by the time they were five years old. They have very little first-hand recollection of conditions there. However, they are seeking redress not only for their time in Bethany Home but also for the time they lived with foster families until they were 18 years old. They sought inclusion in the residential institutions redress scheme, which is under the remit of the Minister for Education and Skills, but mother and baby homes generally and fostering were not included in that scheme. The Minister reassured the group that, contrary to some suggestions, the religious ethos of an institution was not a criterion for inclusion within the redress scheme.

While acknowledging the hurt and pain that remains with the survivors, having reviewed the papers on the home and having taken all the circumstances into account, the Minister regretted that he found no basis to revisit the 2010 government decision.

The Bethany survivors' group has made it clear it never regarded the Bethany Home as falling within the same category as the Magdalen laundries. It is not seeking to be included in any compensation scheme for the Magdalen laundry women.

In April 2013, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, met with the Bethany survivors' group at its request. The members of the group are continuing to seek a redress scheme to cover the entire childhood on the basis of their presence at Bethany. The position was explained to them and an offer was made to assist them with questions and records. Under the Data Protection Act a living person has a statutory right to access their personal data. The person who holds that data, the data controller, must provide access. This right is limited to their own information only. Information relating to a third party, such as a sibling or a deceased parent, is not covered. The Data Protection Act applies to such individuals but there is no legal obligation on them to preserve such records.

In April 1934, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, stated, "It is a well-known fact that in some of our largest cities there are maternity homes of a very poor class which are availed of largely by unmarried mothers. We are not at all satisfied that these homes are properly managed".

Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I commend Sinn Féin for bringing this motion before the House. The party's Deputy Leader, Deputy McDonald, has called on the Government to provide resources for a small number of elderly men and women. The Government decided in July that it would not introduce a redress scheme, but it is willing to consider the question of a memorial and making records from the Bethany Home available to survivors. I understand that the Bethany survivors' group is not happy with this decision.

The Government's decision was based on a determination that the Bethany Home was a mother and baby home, but the survivors dispute this. The Bethany Home was closed in 1972, which was a different time. It was a home for so-called "fallen women" and was not as harsh a regime as that suffered by women in the Magdalen laundries. However, it was an Irish solution to an Irish problem, where women could hide their shame and deliver babies away from public view.

We have come through difficult times. Outside the gates of Leinster House today there were undocumented people from other countries seeking Irish citizenship. Ireland today is such a different place to when tens of thousands of men and women left here because they felt they were not being taken care of. Things are changing now.

Many of the young girls we are discussing this evening were adopted by childless Protestant couples in Northern Ireland and Britain. This remains a difficult situation for the survivors. The two rival churches, the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, were puritanical and judgmental. They did not dealt correctly with the poor, vulnerable and forgotten.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, met with the Bethany survivors in May 2011 and reviewed the papers on the home. Having taken all the circumstances into account, he found no basis to revisit the decision not to include the home within the redress scheme.

There is a concern that the former residents of the home have been forgotten about. When the redress scheme was introduced in 2002 I introduced a lot of men to the details involved. They were delighted to get such help and to know that their suffering was being recognised. At that time, the redress board was a vehicle, although it might not have been the best one. It may have cost a lot more money that the State was willing to pay out, but it was used nonetheless.

We can now examine different ways of addressing the problems, however. The Minister should examine the possibility of reaching some accommodation - although not through a redress board or scheme - that would satisfy the few remaining people who feel they have been left out. I hope the Government can look at providing something in that regard.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to share time with Deputies Brian Stanley, Seán Crowe, Jonathan O'Brien and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to begin by commending the Bethany Home survivors and campaigners who have worked hard for years to highlight the grave injustice to the women and children who were held there between 1922 and 1972. I commend in particular Derek Leinster and Niall Meehan who have done a huge amount to give the survivors and the deceased a voice, to carry out detailed research on what really occurred in the Bethany Home, and to raise public and official awareness. It is sad when so much progress has been made in seeking recognition, apology and redress for other survivors of punitive institutions in this State, that so little progress has been made with regard to the survivors and the deceased of the Bethany Home.

I raised this issue repeatedly in the last Dáil, including directly with the previous Taoiseach. Some who are now on the Government benches were, at that time, highly critical of the failure to recognise Bethany for what it was. I regret to say that now they are repeating the mantra of the last government and in no greater or more direct way than in the contribution we heard last night from the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. I am particularly disappointed by the thoroughly negative and insulting contribution of the Minister of State, who replied on behalf of the Government.

For our part, Sinn Féin did not approach this serious mater with any spirit of party political discord. On the contrary, we tabled a modest motion that sought to reopen the debate, rekindle public and political awareness, and make progress on behalf of the small number of surviving men and women of the Bethany Home. This motion should command all-party support across the Dáil. If Government voices do not want to divide the House tonight, they should withdraw the amendment and support the substantive motion tabled by Sinn Féin. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, chose to reject the motion. She tabled a paltry amendment and threw party political insults across the Chamber. It does her and this Government no credit but we will not allow such an approach to divert us.

In a letter in December 2010, Derek Leinster acknowledged those in the Oireachtas who had, up to that time, raised the case of the Bethany Home. These included the then Deputy Kathleen Lynch, my colleague Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh and myself. We were substantive voices on this issue going back a long number of years. Putting the case in context, Derek Leinster stated:

Ireland has moved from stigmatising certain groups, such as unmarried mothers and their "illegitimate" children, to general indifference toward marginalised children. This links the eras of religious and secular unconcern toward the vulnerable. In each era the State had or has a responsibility. This responsibility to former residents of the Bethany children and of Magdalen institutions has yet to be acknowledged through some form of redress. Though one institution was Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, the State facilitated a sectarian social care system that it then failed to regulate in the interests of residents. That is where injustice lies.

We need only look at the statistics for the deaths of children in Bethany Home.

Between 1922 and 1949, 219 Bethany Home children died. These same children currently lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. Of the 219 dead children 175 were aged between four weeks and two years, 25 were aged from a number of hours up to four weeks and 19 were stillborn. Cemetery records indicate that the causes of death included 54 from convulsions, 41 from heart failure, 26 from starvation and seven from pneumonia. These stark and shocking figures speak for themselves.

I urge the Government to withdraw its amendment, to accept the motion as tabled and let us move forward together on an all-party basis to see justice finally done for the Bethany Home survivors and in memory of the deceased.

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I take this opportunity read into the record the testimony of Derek Leinster, a survivor of Bethany Home. It states:

My mother became pregnant and as my father was a Catholic and my mother being a Protestant, that meant they could not marry. My mother's parents sent her to Bethany Home, she was sent there 4 months before I was born and was there until 4½ months after I was born. She had served her punishment for having a child out of wedlock. That was the Protestants way of dealing with a girl getting pregnant.

At 7½ months old I was nursed out to Mrs. Shirley, my head was a mass of puss, blood and scabs. I looked like a ghost. They nursed me back to normal health. I was then taken back to Bethany when I was 2½ years old, to be permanently adopted by another family - that did not happen.

There were many children in the Bethany Home who suffered from Rickets. The most common cause of rickets is a lack of vitamin D or calcium in a child's diet. And the 219 dead children buried in Mount Jerome, says it all.

I then became very ill and was lucky that they had left enough time to give Cork St Isolation Hospital a chance to save my life. I had Bronchial Pneumonia, Diphtheria, Pertussis and Gastroenteritis. I survived that. I then went back to Bethany Home and was illegally adopted to a dysfunctional family in Co. Wicklow. I grew up in total poverty; in rags and starvation - to the degree that I had to go into fields at night and take potatoes just to stay alive.

I have suffered all my life with effects from Bethany Home, and now I have Cancer of the Blood due to neglect and lack of care. I left for the UK at 18 years of age unable to read or write. The Bethany Home as a Maternity & Children's Home came under the 1934 ACT and the 1908 Children's Act. It was also a Detention Centre for people under the age of 17 and a Detention Centre for adults, these came under the Justice ACT.

The Bethany Home also nursed out children and the government paid them 15/2 a week per child for that. Bethany Home wasn't excluded because it did not qualify - They just excluded it because it was a small minority Protestant Home, which they never believed that one day we would be able to find out the truth.

You see, my mother was forced to abandon me she had no other option back then but then my new parents - the State - made the decision to abandon me. Contained in the Irish Constitution it says - Cherish the Children of the Nation Equally, well I am asking today that the state treat us the survivors from the Bethany Home equally.

We want the following:1. We want to be treated as Irish Citizens

2. We want an apology from the State

3. We want a fitting Memorial for the Graves of children from Bethany Home in Mount Jerome cemetery

4. We want the records from PACT where they keep all the Protestant Homes records to be lodged with a Government Department.

5. We want a Redress system to recognise our loss.

6. We want the State to stop discriminating against us because it was a Protestant home.The criteria as set down by the government in 2002, in 4.1 of the ACT; for a home to go on the list of homes it had to qualify for the redress criteria. It states that it had to be to be regulated or inspected, or provide education for children or provide care for disabled children, we from the Bethany Home qualified under that criteria.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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The survivors of the terrible conditions of Bethany Home were excluded from the residential institutions redress scheme on the basis that Bethany Home was a private home for which the State had no responsibility. However, we know the State had responsibility for Bethany Home as it was subject to State inspections under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. In some instances, the State made financial contributions to the cost of nursing out children, namely, the fostering out of children to temporary care. We know from Department of Local Government and Public Health inspector reports and media articles at the time just how barbaric the conditions were at Bethany Home. How can this Government say the State had no responsibility for Bethany Home?

In 1924, The Irish Times reported that a woman was charged with breaking her probation bond by refusing to remain in Bethany Home, to which she had been sent following the hearing of a series of charges against her for theft. In the same year the Irish Independent reported that a young woman was charged with obtaining food and lodging at the Royal Hotel in Bray by false pretences and was ordered to enter the Bethany Home for six months. In 1931, the Irish Independent reported that a woman pleaded guilty in the Central Criminal Court to the crime of concealment of birth and was bound to the peace for two years, with an undertaking that she should remain in a home. She was given to the care of Bethany Home. In January 1940, The Irish Times and Irish Independent published articles stating it was reported in the High Court that the Garda were in the habit of sending any homeless Protestant girl to Bethany Home.

The evidence of State involvement goes deeper. In 1939, then deputy chief medical officer for the Government Dr. Winslow Sterling Berry refuted public and health inspectorate concerns over standards of care at Bethany Home, with his jaundiced opinion that it waswell known that illegitimate children were delicate and suffered from starvation.He then forced the home to agree to cease admitting Roman Catholics. This highlights the sectarian and partisan nature of then Government policies.

The conditions at Bethany Home and the decision to send women and children there did not matter as long as Roman Catholics were not affected. Such was the brutal neglect in Bethany Home that 219 children died there between 1922 and 1949. These same children currently lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. I have attended their annual and moving remembrance ceremony. The State is, and has been, aware of the unmarked graves for a number of years yet they lie to this day hidden, their passage in life ignored and in death abandoned. Bethany Home in Rathgar was not simply a mother and baby home. Any attempt by Government to present it as such is deliberately misleading.

Despite a new Government inspection regime, child mortality in the 51 year history of the home was at its highest between 1935 and 1939, with 86 children interred in Mount Jerome during this time. More deaths, and additional non-fatal illnesses, took place in the first ten year period during which Bethany was subject to a State inspection regime than occurred in the previous ten years when 57 children died. Why did the numbers increase so substantially and under the State's watch?

In 1940, Bethany Home changed its admissions policy to exclude Catholics. It appears then Government Departments took no interest in the home after this point despite the State's statutory obligation and responsibility for it.

The Government should live up to its responsibility and add Bethany Home to the residential institutions redress scheme.

We were told for years that there was no information linking the State to the Magdalen laundries, but it was found somehow. Perhaps the Minister of State could tell us where it was found. I respectfully suggest that the overlooked or ignored information linking Bethany Home to the State can also be found. I call on the Minister of State to ponder that during tonight's debate. Clearly, there is information available. There was no information for the Magdalen laundries, but miraculously it was found. I am certain that the information on Bethany Home is sitting on someone's desk.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Thankfully, I was not here last night to listen to the contribution of the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, because when I read the transcripts today I was rather shocked by some of the things she said. I was shocked because it was as if, when she walked into Government Buildings, someone had erased her memory. It was like something from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", as if someone took her out and put in someone else's memory and feelings. It was as if everything she had said on this issue went out the window during her contribution last night. That was rather disappointing not only for me but, I imagine, for the Bethany Home survivors as well. I will quote some of the things she has said previously on this issue. On 7 October 2010, Deputy Kathleen Lynch issued a statement and I will quote from that statement:

The continued refusal of the Government to include former residents of the Bethany Homes and the Magdalene Laundries under the provisions of the Residential Institutional Redress Scheme is a running sore ... As a result, the survivors have been deprived of the opportunity of having their case heard and of obtaining some justice and redress for the abuse they suffered as young, innocent and vulnerable children.

In recent times some tenacious survivors and dedicated researchers have managed to piece together the grim picture of what happened in these bleak places. As a result, it is now becoming clearer and clearer that these institutions were, to all intents and purposes, places of detention, and that as such, 'residents' were effectively sentenced by servants of the state, to periods of confinement therein.

I raised this matter with the Tánaiste, Deputy Mary Coughlan in the Dáil today, but unfortunately nothing she said to me in reply, would lead me to conclude that she has any plans to address this issue in any meaningful way ... The Government must do the decent thing and end this outrage.

Yet, last night in the Chamber the Minister of State spoke in favour of a Government amendment to our Private Members' motion which, in one fell swoop, practically revised history given what she has said previously on Bethany Home. She glossed over the fact that the State was directly responsible for sending women to the institution. She blamed the deaths of hundreds of children on the fact that poverty and infant mortality rates were high back then. She further attempted to paint Bethany Home as some type of blissful sanctuary for the pregnant and destitute women of this State, especially those from Dublin. She said it was completely open to the public. She pointed to the fact that there were sales of work and that the residents of the institution made various products that had been for sale. She did this in a bizarre effort to try to portray an institution that was not so unjust and harsh on the people who, unfortunately, found themselves behind those doors.

The Minister of State made further comments last night which were even more disappointing because she referred to us and questioned our motives for putting down this Private Members' motion. She said she was "surprised by the people in Sinn Féin putting down this motion". She went on to call on us to "reflect on the work of this Government, which has dealt with symphysiotomy, the Magdalenl laundries women, Mr. Neary and all the other major legacy issues that will have a substantial cost on the State".

Let us be clear. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, is listening because I want her to be clear to her as well. It is neither here nor there what the State has had to deal with up to this point. There is a litany of people who are owed apologies on behalf of the State and who were failed by the State. The Bethany Home survivors are one such group. They are entitled to justice, an apology and a redress scheme, the same as any other group who have been failed by the State.

The Minister of State made a particular point in asking whether those of us in Sinn Féin did not believe that if this Government could have included the Bethany Home survivors that it would not have been done. She went on to speak about transparency, honesty and integrity in respect of this issue. That took a little nerve, even for someone like Deputy Kathleen Lynch, because on 26 May 2010, before she became a Minister of State and entered Government Buildings, she attended a function hosted by the Bethany Home survivors group. After that function she issued a statement to the media in which she said she would add her support to the campaign:

I believe that the Bethany Home should be included within the Irish Government's redress scheme as well as the Magdalen laundry women so that people who suffered the horrors of abuse in those institutions, on the wink and nod of the State, can be afforded the reparations that they deserve. I also believe that there should be a fitting and appropriate memorial to children who did not survive such as those who are buried in Mount Jerome cemetery which I visited today.

The Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, went to some pains to say that she understood just how poor the women who ended up in Bethany Home were. She even made the point that the State could not be held responsible for every tragedy that arose or that was visited on every child. She said "those from Bethany Home were not alone in their experiences and the State cannot accept liability for everything that happened in families when it had no direct involvement". I disagree with that. The State has a responsibility to every child, man and woman. I call on the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, to explain what has changed in her position since 2010. The children who suffered terribly in foster homes upon leaving Bethany Home did not get the luxury of picking who they went to live with.

I conclude by noting one cannot pretend to care about the suffering through which the Bethany Home survivors have gone and then wash one's hands of it when one gets into a position of power and has the means to do everything for which one called when in opposition. It is not acceptable and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, is doing herself no favours by being such a hypocrite on this issue. Moreover, she certainly is doing no justice to the survivors themselves.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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As I begin my contribution on this matter, I am mindful that behind me is the statue of James Connolly, as well as those of all the other leaders who fought in the 1916 Rising. Many people share my view that James Connolly was the greatest Irish person who ever lived and that the courage and values he espoused, which are imprinted into the Proclamation, will forever be a framework for the Irish people. However, it was not just about James Connolly because he was inspired by those who came before him, just as Members are today, such as Michael Davitt and James Fintan Lalor, who had a vision for a society that was fair and just. After the execution of James Connolly, people such as Liam Mellowes, about whom I saw a documentary the other night, came to the fore. These were people who really believed in equality and fairness and in everyone having a chance in life. Their values, courage and message were hijacked by conservatives, by people whose vision was narrow, mean and cruel and who besmirched the promise of the Proclamation very quickly after partition and the treaty. It is no accident that Bethany Home came into being in the year of the treaty and the foundation of the new State.

I cannot understand how the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, can wipe her hands of this issue. Anyone with basic knowledge of history knows the regimes that ran the State in the decades that followed its foundation pursued an agenda that put poor children and mothers into homes. How much more evidence does one need? One can research the newspapers and people such as Niall Meehan have demonstrated clearly and beyond any reasonable doubt that this State was culpable in putting young mothers and leaving children abandoned in this home, as well as in so many others. It is incredible that when some people enter Government, the bean counters sometimes influence their direction, that is, those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, to use Oscar Wilde's famous phrase. I refer to the people who always look at the bottom line rather than what is right or what is the right thing to do. One should remember that these people who controlled the State with the willing consent of the Governments that had been elected during those decades, be they Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil-led or whatever, would call themselves Christians. Regardless of whether they were Protestants or Roman Catholics, they professed to follow the lesson of Christ. What would Christ think about what was done in his name in Bethany Home? What would Christ think of the 222 children who died because of meanness, cruelty and harshness and of enforcing one's moral values on people and simply perceiving them as pieces of dirt? That is what happened in the State. That was the history of the State for decades, in which the promise of men and women of values, of passion, of equality and of decency were besmirched and buried.

Now is the time for Members to set right these things and they must do it. I sat through the presentations given in Leinster House earlier this year and I do not believe there was a dry eye in the AV room when Derek Leinster and Patrick Anderson-McQuoid, two people who are decent to the core of their being, to their bone, gave their testimony. I simply cannot understand how any politician who heard the evidence and testimony or who saw the compelling evidence put together by Niall Meehan and others can deny these people and these families their justice. Members must do the right thing and must do what is right. How, with all the evidence of history and all the multiples of reports, newsreels and everything that is available, can Members deny they owe a debt of service to the citizens who the State failed? Members owe an apology to those who have been so cruelly failed in the past.

I am aware this motion will be voted down late at night. Sitting opposite me on his own on the Government benches is a Minister of State who has absolutely no responsibility for justice and equality. He is the only representative of the Government in the Chamber this evening. I have nothing against the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, personally but for God's sake. Last night, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, was in the Chamber rewriting history. I will reiterate what I have stated previously on such occasions, which is that my party does not claim to have a monopoly of decency. I believe the vast majority of parliamentarians in these Houses to be thoroughly decent people. However, what will happen here this evening, when this motion is voted down, is indecent. I ask the Government to reflect on this and to deliver justice to those families who were failed as part of that hijack of the Republic for decades by people who besmirched the Republic and besmirched the name of Jesus Christ to keep people down in oppression. While those days are over, Members must now heal the wounds and give justice and a simple apology to those who suffered at their hands.

John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, set out the Government's position in detail last night. I will take this opportunity to address some of points raised by other Deputies during the debate. In particular, I must address the insinuation made by one Deputy that decisions on Bethany Home may have been influenced by sectarian discrimination. It is patently absurd to suggest that the Ministers for Education and Skills and Justice and Equality, Deputies Quinn and Shatter, or the Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, are in any way biased in favour of treating those who were in Roman Catholic institutions more favourably than those in institutions with a Protestant ethos. I must reject completely any such suggestion.

Last night, frequent references were made to the link between Bethany Home and the criminal justice system. There was such a link but I do not see any particular significance in it. Bethany Home evolved from two charities, one of which was the Dublin Prison Gate Mission, which was established in 1876 by a Quaker woman to assist women recently released from prison. It is not surprising, therefore, that this link established in the 19th century continued on into the 20th century. However, I hope there is no suggestion that Bethany Home was in any way the equivalent of a prison. It was not a place of detention for adult women. While women on probation might stay there, they were not detained there. From 1934, Bethany Home was based in the suburb of Rathgar in a home already built on the site. I have heard no suggestion that it was in any way a closed institution surrounded by high walls. Indeed, all the indications are that there was free access to the home. It is true that with effect from 1945, a girl under the age of 17 could be detained there by order of a criminal court but for short periods only and this does not seem to have been a frequent occurrence. There have been no complaints from any individuals in Bethany linked to the criminal justice system and nor has there been any suggestions of wrongdoing as regards this aspect of Bethany Home.

Any objective observer must accept that for most of its existence, Bethany Home was primarily, although not exclusively, a mother and baby home. Its registration as a maternity home under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934, the finding of the High Court in 1940 and the testament of the survivors all support this view. Indeed, as illustrated by the testament read into the record last night, the main complaint of the Bethany group relates to their childhood experiences, starting with their birth in Bethany Home. It is the mother and baby aspect of the home that has given rise to all the controversy.

Mother and baby homes were not included within the scope of the residential institutions redress scheme under the remit of the Department of Education and Skills. I understand that St. Patrick's mother and baby home was included in the redress scheme on the basis that it was subject to inspection by a public body and that it operated as a children's home as well as a mother and baby home. Requests to have other mother and baby homes included in the scheme were also rejected, regardless of their religious ethos. As all the major decisions on the residential institutions redress scheme were made by a Fianna Fáil-led Government, the contribution by Deputy Niall Collins yesterday is somewhat puzzling.

I should clarify that when the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, referred to a charity in the context of Bethany Home, this was not intended as an endorsement of its aims or methods. The term was used in the sense that it was a body established for charitable purposes rather than as a commercial entity.

I wish to clarify that the Government fully acknowledges the hardships and emotional challenges faced by those who started life in Bethany Home. As their testament makes clear, most of them spent a very short time in the home and many of their issues and claims for redress relate to what happened after they left the home.

The remarks made by the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch about poverty and infant mortality were not to belittle the experience of those in Bethany Home nor to excuse what happened at the time. Rather it was to point out that, unfortunately, poverty and hardship affected a significant proportion of the population at the time, not just those in Bethany Home. Infant mortality rates at the time were high, regardless of the marital status of the parents.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to share time with Deputy Mary Lou McDonald. Gabhaim buíochas do Derek Leinster, Patrick McCabe, Niall Meehan agus siúd eile a bhuail liom thar na blianta agus a thug eolas dom faoin scannal seo agus a chur na fíricí os ár gcomhair. Níl a fhios agam an raibh an deis ag an Aire Stáit, an Teachta Perry, nó an Aire Stáit, an Teachta Kathleen Lynch, bualadh leis na daoine seo riamh nó fiú éisteacht a thabhairt don mhéid a bhí le rá acu. B'fhéidir dá mbeadh sé sin déanta go dtuigfeadh na hAirí Stáit go díreach cén fáth go bhfuil sé ceart agus cuí brón a ghabháil leo siúd a bhí i dTeach Bethany agus go bhfuil an méid atá sa rún os ár gcomhair ceart.

Our motion calls on the Government to accept the historic facts. I ask the Minister of State to read Niall Meehan's history of the institution which was published in the 2010 September-October edition of History Ireland. This was a Protestant institution but it was similar to many Catholic institutions. It was a maternity home and a children's home but it was also a place of detention for women on remand or convicted of crime. Not all its inhabitants were Protestant.

The motion calls for a State apology and a redress mechanism. A State apology is appropriate in this instance because of the role this State and its officials played in sustaining the institution that was Bethany Home. A State apology is not given lightly nor should it be but once a case has been proven and a wrong exposed, as in this case, the proper and right course of action is to admit the mistakes of the past.

In 2010 the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had the courage to apologise to victims who were transported to Australia. He apologised for Britain's role in stealing those children from their families. The extent of that practice only came to light because of the Trojan work of Margaret Humphreys. Ireland, to its shame, has not begun to address the similar situation, the harrowing and brutal episode of our past when children born in Ireland were spirited away by religious orders and others. Bethany Home also played a role in that scandal which remains to be fully uncovered. While some apology has been issued to those wronged in this State in the case of the Magdalen women and those abused by members of the Catholic Church orders, other victims of State indifference or State collusion with institutions still await an apology. We need think only of the victims of the depraved practice of symphysiotomy or the victims of thalidomide. We appeal to the Minister of State for one case and we ask the State to issue an apology to the few survivors of Bethany Home.

I listened last night in amazement to the Minister of State's contribution. I re-read it today to ensure she said what I thought I heard. She was trying to lay the blame on Sinn Féin for stirring up this issue, the righteous call for an apology contained in this motion. She said this is what Sinn Féin does. It is always about the next impossible task. This is not an impossible task nor is the legacy of those stolen children exported like cattle to Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, not only from Bethany Home but also from various Catholic institutions. It is not an impossible task to issue an apology or to look to find out the full history of what happened in Bethany Home. We have taken on much bigger tasks and proved they are not impossible. The will must be there because if the will is not there, it is impossible. I urge the Minister of State to find the will and to look at this task properly. The disgraceful legacy of this State, its institutions and its officials in labelling children as illegitimate or incarcerating their expectant mothers and banishing them from their home towns, fallen women to be ostracised or shunned, is history and I agree it cannot be undone. A mature State acknowledges the mistakes of the past and ensures they will not happen again. It does more than that. It apologises to the victims for the attitudes it perpetuated. It apologises for the resultant abuse and crimes, the exploitation and the mental and physical torture suffered as a consequence of its actions or inactions to uphold the dignity and rights of those citizens of the State who suffered in Bethany Home.

The Government amendment is shameful and seems to seek to exonerate the State from all blame, despite the facts. The Minister of State's response will be remembered as similar to Michael Woods in 2002 who at the last minute did a disgraceful indemnity deal with the Catholic Church orders. The Minister of State said that the inclusion of Bethany Home in the redress scheme was ruled out in May 2007, as the information located indicated it operated as a mother and baby home and therefore not regarded as eligible to be considered. The Minister of State referred to St. Patrick's mother and baby home on the Navan Road. Because it was inspected by State officials it was included in the redress scheme, but I remind him that Bethany Home was also inspected.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I would like to know where is the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter or indeed, his sidekick, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch who had so much to say last evening. I do not level that as a personal insult to the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, but it is quite clear he is not the member of the Government who should be seated, on his own, on the Government benches to take this debate.

We can draw conclusions from the absence of the Minister, Deputy Shatter and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. Either they do not care about this issue or they are at some human level deeply aware and deeply ashamed of the action their Government is taking. I cannot be absolutely sure which motivates their absence from the Chamber but I hope that it is the second. I hope that when the lights are out and the microphones are off and both of those individuals, indeed every individual member of the Cabinet, along with those on the backbenches reflect for themselves, they will realise the injustice that is being done. This injustice is not in the past, not by those who ran a home, but in the here and now by the democratically elected Government of this State.

When it is boiled down, the Government's rationale for rejecting our motion is that Ireland was poor and things were tough. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, had a lot to say about that yesterday. This sentiment has been echoed from the Government benches.

In this impoverished Ireland, those who ran the Bethany Home were moved by what the Minister describes as charitable motives. The amendment the Government has brought before the House amounts to an apologiafor those who ran the Bethany Home, citing their charitable motivation and the poverty of Ireland in general at that time. There is no other possible interpretation of that amendment, and there is no other possible understanding of the contribution of the Minister, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, last night, re-affirmed in part by the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, this evening.

In the Bethany Home institution, children and babies, for the short time they were there, suffered. That is what happened. In that institution children and babies died at enormously high rates. My colleagues and others have referred to the remains of 219 small souls in Mount Jerome cemetery still in unmarked graves. Far from affirming, recognising or sympathising with the experiences of those children the Minister and this Government have belittled their experiences and set them aside because they are inconvenient for them. They seek to deny their experiences despite testimony from the small number of courageous survivors who have come forward, many of them, as the Minister of State will have heard in their own testimony, damaged and traumatised in their childhood and further dismayed and traumatised in adulthood by the failure of this Government to look their experiences in the eye and account and apologise for them.

Last night, the Minister, Deputy Lynch, accused the Sinn Féin Members of having our facts wrong. It is a measure of how pathetic and perverse her position on this matter is that she sought to zone in on the fact that we identified Bethany Home as being located in Rathgar and omitted to make reference to the fact, of which we are aware, that the home started its life in Blackhall Place, where it was located for 12 years. It moved to Rathgar in 1934. Incidentally, 1934 is also the year in which the registration of maternity homes legislation comes onto the Statute Book. The Minister, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, had the gall to stand in this Chamber and engage in that level of petty political point-scoring when we were seeking to discuss a matter of grave importance. Her position was pathetic and perverse.

I respectfully suggest to the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, to the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and all involved in this Government that they check their facts, and the facts are that Bethany Home was inspected by the State. The facts are that records held by the then Department of Local Government and public health inspectors' reports registered the level of neglect of children in the home, and subsequently in foster homes, when they were sent to what were called nurse mothers. The fact is that the State paid a subvention in many cases in respect of these nursing out foster care situations. Those are the facts, and the Ministers, Deputy Kathleen Lynch and Deputy Alan Shatter, up on their high horses, should dust down those facts and not pretend for another second that the State's fingerprints were not all over Bethany Home because the facts are that they were.

It is a fact also, and this is keenly felt by the survivors, that perhaps the sole action by this State to intervene in the Bethany Home was to ensure that Roman Catholic children were not admitted to it for fear that they might be transformed into Protestant children. That was the State's action in the face of sky high infant mortality rates and general child mortality rates. In the face of known and reported abuse and neglect the State sought to intervene to stop what it viewed as proselytizing activities, namely, turning Catholic children into Protestant children.

It is entirely wrong for anybody to argue that this motion is simply concerned with the past. As my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, said, wrongs done in the past cannot be undone, and therein lies the greatest tragedy. This is about now. This is about a very small group of survivors who experienced what can only be properly described as horrific trauma in childhood in institutions and subsequently in foster care arrangements inspected, overseen and known by the State. That is what happened. Even at this stage and at this remove from their trauma these people deserve the dignity of acknowledgement and the dignity of us, as elected legislators, saying "We have heard your story. We believe you. We acknowledge your hurt and as a State and a people, we apologise for that." That is what needs to happen.

Despite its posturing, this Government strenuously resisted affording that same dignity to the Magdalen women and but for the intervention of the United Nations Committee Against Torture, I dare say we might be standing in the Chamber this evening discussing the trauma of those women and girls.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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You dare say that wrongly.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Fortunately, that is not the case.

The Government says that mother and baby homes are excluded from redress. We have noted the exception of St. Patrick's Home on Navan Road. I query the rationale for this State excluding mother and baby homes. I go further and say there is a great need for us to uncover and put the full glare of public understanding on precisely what happened in mother and baby homes dotted across this land.

Leaving that aside, Bethany was not simply a mother and baby home. It was a children's home and a place of detention also. The Minister said last night in her rather warped contribution to this debate that the State cannot have responsibility for what happens to every child in every family when there is no responsibility for the State. That is a dubious statement in and of itself but let us be clear. We know that the State was right in the middle of the operation and oversight of the Bethany Home. The Minister's own records, the records of the State, reflect that.

There is not a reason to exclude further these survivors unless the Government is so mean-spirited and so cruel as to consider that a small group of survivors, elderly people at this stage, can be just disregarded because there are so few of them.

I thank those who took part in this debate. I note again that the Government benches were remarkably bare for the course of this debate. I appeal to my colleagues, the Deputies of this House, to do the right thing this evening. I want them to understand clearly that if they vote in favour of the Government's amendment, they set aside the truth and underwrite and underscore the big lie that the State, and by extension this Government, has no responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home in the past and for recognition and making amends in the present.

I thank those who took part in this debate. I note again that the Government benches were remarkably bare for the course of this debate. I appeal to my colleagues, the Deputies of this House, to do the right thing this evening. I want them to understand clearly that if they vote in favour of the Government's amendment, they set aside the truth and underwrite and underscore the big lie that the State, and by extension this Government, has no responsibility for what happened in Bethany Home in the past and for recognition and making amends in the present.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Given that the Minister sponsoring this disgraceful amendment does not even have the grace to appear and support his own warped and gratuitously cruel position in respect of survivors of the Bethany Home-----

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Is the Deputy looking for a walk through vote?

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Given the clearly defensive stance of the spineless sheep on the Government backbenches, I think it only fair to give Deputies an opportunity to reconsider their position and, therefore, I request the vote be taken by other than electronic means.