Mother and Baby Homes Commission 'did a good job', says Varadkar

Speaking in the Dáil, Leo Varadkar said the Mother and Baby Home Commission did what it was asked to do. File Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has defended the Mother and Baby Homes Commission by claiming they "did a good job".

His comments came after pleas were made in the Dáil to extend the commission to allow for a full investigation of the destruction of mother and baby home recordings.

Survivors and campaigners have called for the extension after it emerged that 550 records of witness testimony were deleted without verbatim transcripts being made.

Survivors have also criticised the tone of the final report and say their voices are not reflected in it.

However, Mr Varadkar said: "I think the commission did a good job. It did what it was asked to do, in many ways.

It spent five years examining all the documentary evidence, spoke to lots of people who spend time or worked in mother and baby institutions and did its best to come up with a report to a legal standard as to what could and could not be proven and what was and was not said.

Mr Varadkar added that he did not want anything that he said "to be seen as a criticism of the people who did the report" because "they did a good job within the confines of the Commission of Investigation Act".

Mr Varadkar went on to say that the laws governing commissions of investigations are flawed.

"One big flaw is the fact that when the commission reports, it reports. It is almost left then to the Government to explain the report, even though it was not the Government's report."

Extension sought

Mr Varadkar was responding to Solidarity-PBP TD Bríd Smith who pleaded with him in his capacity as a representative of the Government "to find a way to do something to extend the lifetime of the commission" beyond February 28.

Ms Smith said every politician was aware of the destruction of files as they have all received emails about it from the survivors and their representatives.

"The reason is that the survivors and their representatives believe — a lot of legal advice is to this effect — that if the commission closes down on February 28, there will be no prospect that it will be able to go after the files containing the 550 oral testimonies that we are told have been destroyed."

She said the term of the commission had been extended "five or six times just because the Government was asked to extend it" when the report was being compiled.

"It did so on behalf of the commission looking for more time. 

Survivors are now asking for it and I am pleading with the Tánaiste to do his best to get this done.

She added: "Over Christmas, I found an old tape of a conversation between me and my ma 20 years ago and I got it digitised for her anniversary, which was just after Christmas. Those recordings are precious to those who know the people and to us as a society because of what went on in the mother and baby homes and the disparity between what was recorded and what was transcribed. 

"We need to get those recordings back."