Legislation to provide enhanced health and education supports to survivors of abuse in residential institutions could end up reinstitutionalising them late in life, the Dáil has heard.
TDs on Wednesday night passed, by 87 votes to 71, the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill, which was first introduced last year.
The legislation was sharply criticised by the Opposition, with Sinn Féin TD Darren O’Rourke saying it did not give “survivor status for social housing applications” to those supposed to benefit from it.
He said they could end up in nursing homes and “the idea that the people involved would be reinstitutionalised at a late stage in their lives is simply unconscionable”.
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Labour’s Ciarán Ahearn said the legislation “is already a huge breach of trust because it ignores entirely the survivors’ repeatedly stated need” for the full Health Amendment Act (HAA) card.
The legislation provides for an “enhanced medical card” but the HAA card includes a much broader range of services including home nursing and support services.
Mr Ahearn said people would receive little more than the regular medical card, which was “wholly inadequate for their needs”. He said “lest it be forgotten, they have experienced the worst forms of abuse possible at the hands of the State as well as the church”.
Independent TD Catherine Connolly said she had “watched 22 years of apologies and more than 100 years of institutionalisation” and “each scheme has been defective”.
She said the Magdalene scheme led to the Ombudsman “absolutely castigating its discriminatory nature and maladministration”.
“We are here today doing the exact same thing, telling survivors we have listened to them and then absolutely ignoring them,” she said, adding that it was “all to save a few euro”.
“It would have been much simpler all along just to give a payment to every survivor and their families in terms of education.”
The Bill aims to enable ongoing health and education supports to survivors of abuse in residential institutions.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee said “our overall objective is to make sure that nobody is left without a home and nobody is put in that position.
“Local authorities are very mindful of the individual circumstances people find themselves in,” she added.
