Anyone?

Warning: some sweary language.

Last night: Checking Out

Yesterday.

This morning.

FIGHT!

Dr Maeve O’Rourke

This morning.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration debate on the Institutional Burials Bill.

Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns noted that human rights lawyer Dr Maeve O’Rourke had set out in her opening statement that the Attorney General and Minister for Justice can direct the coroner to act and asked if she’d like that to happen.

In response, Dr O’Rourke said:

“We absolutely have set out that the coroner has current obligations and that was the first question that I raised: what is the explanation for the absence of inquests to date?

“We need real answers to that. So that we know what we’re dealing with. What is it that the civil servants are saying as to why the coroner has been misapplied in this law. Is it that they don’t believe legally there’s any requirement? Or that they think it’s too expensive? But the coroner is currently obliged and we need to understand why it’s not happening.

“This legislation, I really believe, will disapply fully the coroner’s current jurisdiction. That’s the point of it. So until it comes into force, the coroner is obliged…but once an agency is established, under this law, in relation to a particular area, the coroner no longer has that legal obligation or power indeed.”

Later

Dr O’Rourke added:

“Things I’d like to point out. One being that the question of how, in relation to an inquest, goes beyond, particularly in Article 2 of the European Convention [on Human Rights) – respecting inquests goes beyond the immediate cause of death to include contextual causes and circumstances as well. So there’s evidence that needs to be gained that doesn’t just come from the body.

“It’s also worth pointing out Section 22 of the Coroner’s Act 1962 which states that: “Where the body of any person upon which it is necessary to hold an inquest has been buried and it is known to the coroner that no good purpose will be effected by exhuming the body for the purposes of an inquest, he/she may proceed to hold an inquest without exhumation.”

“And Section 23 takes this further stating that, where a body may be irrecoverable – which I think is important because, of course, we have hundreds of bodies with no known location and the answer can’t be to just not investigate – so where a body may be irrecoverable and the coroner considers it appropriate to hold an inquest, the minister may order the coroner accordingly.”

Meanwhile…

Phil Scraton, Professor Emeritus at School of Law in Queen’s University in Belfast

In response to a query from Labour TD Sean Sherlock, namely if the State passes the legislation in its current form, Ireland could be found to be in breach of Article 2 of the ECHR?

Law professor Phil Scraton, of Queen’s University. responded:

“…in relation to 70 years, I don’t know where that figure has come from? I don’t know how dreamt it up or why. But there will be an explanation I’m sure and administrative explanation. There should be no exclusion. I don’t believe that you can put a time limit on suffering. And I don’t believe you can put a time limit on lack of knowledge in relation to death.”

Later, he added:

“The final point I really wanted to make is that I think if the proposed bill goes ahead in its present state, this will breach Article 2 of the European Convention [on Human Rights]. There’s no question in my mind about that…Article 2 takes the whole process to a quite different level. It’s an obligation and it has a series of obligations that are imposed on the State.

“…we have to accept that the coronial process currently in Ireland is not fit for purpose, even in its ordinary, every day workings. Our report that comes out next week will demonstrate that. Having said that, coronial investigation is crucial and central to each and every one of these identifiable deaths. And therefore, the process has to connect the families who are suffering this appalling loss over time, has to accommodate that, in the context of a full and thorough investigation which takes me right back to the point that we started on which is how they died.

How each individual died is crucial to every family, the specific circumstances. That is the point of an inquest, that is what an Article 2 inquest would actually seek to uncover and to meet therefore the Irish state’s human rights and domestic obligations.”

More as we get it.

Earlier: ‘Tread Softly, For You Tread On The Bones Of My Family’

This morning.

Covid response critic Ivor Cummins reviews yesterday’s debate between Tim Martin (top left), CEO of Wetherspoon pub chain and Prof Sam McConkey, Head of the Department of International Health and Tropical medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ Radio One.

Under discussion: true mortality rates and just who on earth is John Ioannidis?

Meanwhile…

Quarter of Covid deaths not caused by virus, new figures show (Daily Telegraph)

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly speaking to media before entering Government Buildings for a Cabinet meeting this morning

This morning.

Anyone?

Earlier: On Track

RollingNews

Meanwhile…

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris arriving at Government Buildings this morning.

RollingNews

Peter Mulryan lived in the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway for four and a half years before he was adopted out. He believes a sister called Marian died at the home or was trafficked out of Ireland as a child.

This morning/afternoon.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration is discussing the Institutional Burials Bill.

The proposed legislation will allow excavations and re-interment of remains at former mother-and-baby home institutions. Coroners will not have jurisdiction in respect of bodies exhumed from sites

Chairman of the Tuam Home Survivors Network, Peter Mulryan, who will address the committee this afternoon, had sought legal advice as to whether the committee was acting within its powers in considering the Bill.

Peter writes:

This Bill reflects work undertaken during the tenure of former Attorney General Mr Séamus Woulfe.

It has two clear objects, (1) to circumvent existing law by dispensing with Inquests into the deaths of children lying in mass graves at Tuam, Bessborough, Sean Ros and (2) to clear the way for the commercial developments on other sites which are stained with the cruelty to generations of Irish women and children.

I am not aware of when the responsibility for burials, burial grounds and the exhumation of human remains became the responsibility of this so-called “Department of Children”.

Neither, am I aware of when responsibility for dealing with unexplained deaths was removed from the Coroners Service, the Department of Justice or An Garda Síochana to this “Children’s Department”

But perhaps the members of the Committee know best. They are perhaps better educated than I was. I was simply a hungry and frightened child in the Tuam ‘Home’ before being ‘boarded out’ as a child farm labourer in a cruel environment. They have ‘satisfied’ themselves that they are acting lawfully.

I am aware of course that it is ‘customary’ that the advice of the Attorney General is not published. I simply asked the Committee if they had sought advice. Their reply was to tell me to ‘take a hike’ that it was none of my business, whether they had or not.

I find their reply whether intended to be or not, offensive. I find it insulting and disrespectful.

My sister who I never met and who has no recorded burial place, lies in the Tuam cesspit into which hers and the bodies of other infants were thrown.

Not a single “Medical Certificate” is to be found for the children of Tuam.

Their Death Certificates are works of fiction.

This Committee now sits to consider a Bill which denies my sister and so many other children, even the dignity of possibly determining her cause of death.

Shame, I say. Shame on you all for even looking at this get out of jail card for the State and the Institutional Catholic Church.

I do not want your soft words.

I do not want your sympathy.

I want justice for all the children whose lives were lost due to the indifference and cruelty of Church and State.

I note that the only amendments to this Bill since the departure of Mr Woulfe and the creation of this new Government are designed to ensure that the owners of the sites where these children lie, are are adequately compensated for any inconvenience when removing the bones of the children.

It would indeed be a crime if the dandelions and weeds that sprout from mass graves of children were to be disturbed before these lands are converted into commercial developments.

Tread softly, for you tread on the bones of my family and those of my fellow survivors

Yours respectfully,

Peter Mulryan
‘Former Inmate of the Tuam Mother and Baby Prison’.

Meanwhile…

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is calling for the Institutional Burials Bill to be significantly reformed.

ICCL and others believe this [not having a coroner] could impede an effective investigation into the cause and circumstances of death.

Overall, it believes the bill is inconsistent with a transitional justice approach.

Call for reform of mother-and-baby homes excavations legislation (RTÉ)

Yesterday.

Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6

The coffin arriving at the funeral of Shay Healy in the Victorian Chapel in Mount Jerome. The Eurovision-winning songwriter and broadcaster passed away last Friday.

Meanwhile…

Adele King “Twink”was refused entry to the chapel due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Leon Farrell/RollingNews

Famous faces mourn TV star Shay Healy at sombre funeral ceremony (Extra.ie)

Declan O’Rourke – Arrivals

Free tonight?

Dublin songwriting colossus Declan O’Rourke (top) celebrates the release of his 7th album Arrivals with a live streamed gig from the Abbey Theatre this evening at 8pm.

Declan will be playing songs from the new record, which was produced by Paul Weller. The video for the poignant title track was directed by Natasha Waugh and features stark images of an empty Dublin airport in lockdown as well as Declan playing the piano in a deserted train station.

This will go down as one of the enduring cultural responses to the present crisis.

Tickets for the show tonight can be purchased here.

Nick says: Arrivals is a new departure for Declan.

Declan O’Rourke

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