Debate contribution: Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Joanne Bunting on 30 June 2026.

MLA: Ms Joanne Bunting
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 30 June 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill: Final Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5653103

Text

I beg to move
It is not an exaggeration to say that today is a momentous day. It is an honour and a privilege for me to move the Final Stage of this important legislation on behalf of the First Minister and the deputy first Minister, junior Minister Reilly and, indeed, the Executive. Before turning to the detail of the Bill, it is right that we pause to recognise those who have helped to bring us to this point. This moment has truly been many years in the making. It has been shaped by the courage, perseverance and determination of countless individuals, some of whom are with us today in the Public Gallery. Others will be watching or listening remotely, and to all of them we offer our sincere thanks. Most of all, I pay tribute to the victims and survivors whose experiences sit at the heart of the legislation. We are deeply grateful to those who, often at great cost to themselves, have shared their painful, personal experiences and to those who have engaged constructively and thoughtfully through the consultation forum and the various consultation processes. Without question, they have helped to shape the policy and legislation before the House today. Their willingness to participate in the process has made the Bill stronger, more informed and more meaningful. Special recognition must also be given to the women who began this journey and never gave up: we all know who they are. We specifically acknowledge the women who started Birth Mothers and their Children for Justice all those years ago, as well as those who stood alongside them. Those women showed extraordinary courage. They challenged a silence that had endured for far too long. They encouraged others to come forward and helped them to find their voice. They refused to be cowed, and they rejected the shame and stigma that had been wrongly placed on them by others — a shame that was never theirs to bear. I believe that it is true to say that, for them, it has been a monumental fight to be heard. It is a fight to be acknowledged, and it is a fight to hold to account those responsible for the pain and suffering that they visited on those women during that dark period of our past and since. I think that I can speak for all of us when we say that we are sorry that they have had to fight at all. Of course, the experience did not end with the institution itself; rather, for the victims and survivors — those women and children — the period has been a thread of pain that has woven its way through their entire lives. For many, the past has, indeed, been a lifelong struggle to be heard, to be believed and to be acknowledged. The harm that they experienced did not end when an institution closed its doors, nor did it end when records were filed away. Many victims and survivors carried the consequences throughout their lives, affecting identities, relationships, families and futures — effects that have echoed across generations. I thank all who have contributed to the process. First, the victims, survivors and relatives have been central to the truth recovery programme from the very beginning. We thank all who participated in the Victims and Survivors Consultation Forum. We know that that has not always been an easy space, but we hope that, today, they can reflect on all their efforts with pride. We say a special thanks to Marie Breen Smyth, current independent chair of the forum, and Avila Kilmurray, the previous chair, for their great support of the forum and the programme more generally and to Danny Taggart for his support as clinical psychologist to the forum. We express our gratitude to the Committee for the Executive Office and Assembly staff. The Committee Chairperson and members undertook their scrutiny with diligence, sensitivity and respect. Throughout the process, their engagement with victims and survivors and with the Department reflected the gravity and importance of the issues under consideration. We also take this opportunity to express our appreciation to our own officials, who have worked tirelessly with care, sensitivity and dedication on the Bill with us, with the Committee and, most important, as they engaged with victims and survivors. Likewise, we commend the Office of the Legislative Counsel for its support and drafting expertise. While no legislation can undo the extent of the suffering endured, it is our hope that the Bill represents another important step towards recognition, accountability and healing. The inquiry and the redress scheme represent two parts of a single commitment. One seeks to uncover the truth: what happened, why it happened and who was responsible. The other provides acknowledgement now by creating a redress scheme that provides a financial payment that represents society's acceptance that those affected should not have to wait any longer to receive tangible confirmation that their experiences mattered. To recap, the legislation before the House has been carefully designed to establish an independent and effective public inquiry that is capable of carrying out the comprehensive investigation for which survivors and advocates have long called and that they deserve. It will be built on the important work of the truth recovery independent panel, whose report will launch next week. The establishment of the inquiry matters, because it will do more than examine historical events. It will provide a formal and authoritative process through which experiences can be acknowledged, evidence can be gathered and the historical record can be strengthened. It will have additional powers to examine the evidence and the power to compel new evidence that may not have been accessible to date. We welcome the creation of the advisory panel, which is a distinctive and important feature of the legislation. It goes beyond the standard provisions of the Inquiries Act 2005 and is designed to ensure that the perspectives of victims and survivors remain central throughout the work of the inquiry, while still fully protecting its independence and integrity. It also recognises the broad scope of the work of the inquiry, encompassing communities across this jurisdiction while acknowledging the importance of understanding the experiences of those who were relocated elsewhere on these islands or further afield. If you will indulge me, Mr Deputy Speaker, today is also an important and appropriate moment to reflect on the importance of the Preservation of Documents (Historical Institutions) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, passed by the Assembly almost four years ago to the day. That legislation laid essential foundations for the work that follows and for the inquiry that this Bill seeks to establish. It has enabled colleagues in the Public Record Office to ensure access to records held by institutions within the scope of this programme. To date, more than 6,000 institutional records have been preserved, digitised and catalogued. That covers over 32 record collections and almost 60,000 digital images. Those records can now be made available to the inquiry chair without any unnecessary delay. That is a significant achievement and one that, hopefully, brings victims and survivors closer to obtaining the answers that they have sought for so long.
Important work has also been undertaken by officials in the Department of Health and the trusts to improve access to relevant records, but we appreciate that there is much more to do. We know that the records situation is not perfect, but, nevertheless, we hope that the steps taken thus far represent progress, and we trust that that progress will continue. We are grateful to the Health Minister for his support in advancing that work, and we will continue to engage with him on preparations for the redress scheme and the inquiry. In shaping the framework for the inquiry, we learned valuable lessons from other major inquiries on how best to support participation, engage with vulnerable individuals and ensure that processes are conducted with compassion and care. Through the wider truth recovery programme, dedicated counselling and therapeutic support services were made available through the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS) via its community partners WAVE Trauma Centre and Adopt NI. Over 600 people have accessed those supports to date. The Executive remain committed to ensuring that engagement with those processes is conducted with sensitivity, compassion and respect, and that support remains a central and vital part of the process. To anyone considering whether to engage with the inquiry, let me say that we hope that it will be seen as an opportunity to contribute to a fuller understanding of our shared past. Every testimony matters, as does every piece of evidence. Together, they can help to establish a clearer and more complete picture of what occurred. That is important not only for those who were directly affected but for society as a whole. We cannot change the past or undo the suffering, separation, loss and trauma that were experienced by so many women, children and families, but we can and will seek the truth. We can and will investigate what happened thoroughly and independently. We can ensure that experiences are recognised and recorded, never to be forgotten, and we can help future generations to understand that dark chapter of our history. The practices of these institutions may have been hidden or not spoken about openly, but they were never accidental. They were the product of systemic misogyny, and we continue to see misogyny today from some; it is just in different guises, and that is the ugly truth. It is still cruel, disheartening and difficult to fully comprehend. I hope that the experiences of the many women who were affected by those institutions and practices will serve as a challenge to us all. It is a challenge to us as a society to reflect on what more we can do now to treat women and girls with respect and care and to offer hope for a better future. Ultimately, the success of the inquiry will depend on its ability to uncover the truth. That truth will be stronger, more meaningful and more powerful if those with lived experience feel able to participate. I must say that hearing their lived experiences hits home. It is immensely powerful. I encourage everyone who feels able to engage with the process to do so. They should feel confident that every effort will be made to treat them with dignity, respect and care. The inquiry is about more than examining the past; it is about listening, acknowledging and, above all, ensuring that those whose voices were ignored for far too long are finally heard. Alongside the inquiry, the Bill delivers something that victims and survivors have consistently told us is essential: meaningful acknowledgement in the here and now. Final Stage is not about revisiting policy arguments or decisions on what was or was not passed, yet it was important, necessary and right that the Executive's position was placed on the record. Nevertheless, today is a good day. Moreover, it is a historic day. We are delivering for victims and survivors, as we should. Everybody concerned approached the Bill with the best of intentions and mindful of the hurt and harm of the past. Together, we sought to arrive at deliverable solutions. We worked our way through the challenges and disagreements together, as we should. We did so sensitively, given the nature of the issues, and we afforded respect to one another, including in the debates. We saw constructive engagement between the Executive and the Assembly throughout. I trust that what we witnessed throughout the legislative process will bring some confidence and reassurance to our citizenry and those who care about democracy. The democratic process together with the perseverance of victims and survivors have delivered the final version of the Bill. We congratulate the victims and survivors on all that they did to bring it to fruition. We extend our sincere thanks to all who engaged in the process, recognising the significant achievement. Their input was instrumental in shaping the Bill that the Assembly will shortly be invited to pass. For those affected by the mother-and-baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and related pathways and practices, the process has taken too long, but we can be pleased that we got there, for the victims' sakes. Many have spent decades feeling lost while searching for answers, records, recognition and acknowledgement of the profound impact that the institutions had on their lives. That is why the Bill establishes a statutory redress scheme alongside the inquiry. That approach reflects the recommendations of the truth recovery design panel, agreed by Ministers, which recognise that victims and survivors should not have to wait until every aspect of a truth recovery process has concluded before receiving meaningful acknowledgement. The standardised payment provided for in the Bill is not about financial compensation. It is an acknowledgement of the shame, stigma and lifelong consequences imposed on so many women, children and families. Many of us have been deeply moved and, honestly, forever impacted on by the harrowing details of what we have heard and read of how women and children were treated in those places of supposed care and shelter. We will not forget them or their lived experiences. We fully appreciate that no payment can erase the grief, loss, separation and trauma, but the scheme can provide some tangible recognition to as many people as possible that those experiences mattered and that society accepts a responsibility to acknowledge that the wrongs occurred. The Bill establishes an independent redress service to administer the scheme fairly, consistently and independently. We thank the Justice Minister and her officials for their support in establishing the shadow redress service and for taking forward important preparatory work in advance of the Bill passing and the scheme opening. The service provides powers to obtain relevant evidence and information, which will help applicants to overcome barriers that often arise when dealing with events that occurred many decades ago. We also recognise the victims and survivors who, sadly, did not live to see this day. Many campaigned tirelessly for truth and acknowledgement but have not lived to witness the Bill's passage. Their absence is keenly felt. To victims and survivors considering whether to engage with the redress service, I send an unequivocal message: the scheme exists because your experiences matter, and you need not face the process alone. Today, through the Bill, to victims and survivors we say this: we see you, and we hear you; we feel for what you went through and endured; we acknowledge your experiences; we recognise the injustice that was done to you; and we are committed to uncovering the truth about the past and providing meaningful acknowledgement of its impact. The Bill cannot undo what happened, but it can help to ensure that it is never forgotten, never ignored and never denied. Today is a good day for Northern Ireland, for the House and, most especially, for victims and survivors. I commend the Bill to the House.

2,489 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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