Thread by @Emer_OToole

1/ Can’t stop thinking about the Mother & Baby Homes bill, feeling sad & angry. Sad, because I can't believe it's gone through in spite of all the outcry. And angry, because we’re into the spin cycle now & it’s not even subtle. So: a thread. #UnsealTheArchive #StandforTruth

2/ The neck of senator @barrymward accusing survivors & the expert advocates who’ve worked with them for years of lying. Saying that it’s survivors’ groups and human rights activists who are causing hurt. Barry knows best. He is telling the truth. Listen to Barry.

3/ And @cmcgettrick; @maeveorourke; @clann_project; @Ka_ODonnell; @maglaundries; @BrownNollieb; @MixedRaceIrish; @maireadenright; @JamesGallen; @ococonuts; @aitheantas; @adoptionrights (and so many others, I’m sorry I’m leaving people out) - what would they know?

4/ Ward calls some of the most honest, dedicated, brave, & morally switched on people in Ireland liars. Down is up and up is down. Spin Spin Spin. It’s so brazen.

5/ Or Colm Keena writing a Q&A explainer for the Irish Times which completely fails to represent the position of survivors & advocates on the legislation. He attributes the row to “misunderstanding” and “confusion.”

6/ Claire, Maeve, the Clann Project, the Magdalenes – they MISUNDERSTAND the new legislation? They are CONFUSED about the material gathered? If it was an opinion piece, I wouldn’t mind, but it’s supposed to be an impartial explainer by the Times legal correspondent!

7/ Lots of people who aren’t online to read Maeve’s gracious rebuttal are going to take Keena’s Q&A obfuscator as the last word. And An Taoiseach @MichealMartinTD then tweeting it out as a shining example of journalistic integrity. I’m dizzy.

https://twitter.com/maeveorourke/status/1320361948429602816

8/ Or @rodericogorman on @NewstalkFM today with @gavreilly claiming that the bill he fast-tracked is to be thanked for making some information available to survivors at all but cannot be blamed for sealing the rest of the documents for 30 years. The doublespeak.

9/ The minister regrets that the debate has created anxiety & that he didn’t communicate sufficiently with survivors. Minister, it isn’t the debate that’s caused the anxiety, it’s your legislation. Enough paternalism. Survivors don't need hand-holding. They need their rights.

10/ The 2004 commission of investigation act was never the fit legislation for this enquiry. Legal analysts said it when the commission was established, and @SenatorMcDowell, who authored the legislation, just admitted as much.

https://twitter.com/cmcgettrick/status/1319646205937418242

11/ The minister can clearly legislate to address this problem (as that’s what his bill does), but has chosen to do so in the most conservative possible way. Without consultation with those affected; involving a distrusted state agency

12/ (and pretending he knew nothing about Túsla's disgraceful record working with survivors); & then rushing legislation through the Dáil under the false claim that if he didn’t the commission would have to destroy the archive.

13/ He refuses to provide any legal basis for the above claim, despite being asked repeatedly. And he claims EU data protection law doesn’t apply to the sealed archive because the Attorney General says so. The minister is a lawyer. He knows the AG’s advice isn’t legally binding.

14/ But survivors should thank him for his legislation because they get something rather than nothing. Spin Spin Spinnedy Spin. Is it time to hang us out to dry yet?

15/ I’m writing this too long thread to say how grateful I am to the survivors & advocates who have fought so hard & so long for truth and justice. I believe you. I trust you. Without you, we wouldn’t know the spin was spin. Ireland would swallow another 30 years of secrecy.

16/ You never let us forget what is at stake here. Forced family separation. The disappearing of children. Human Trafficking. Vaccine & medical trials for profit on the most vulnerable. The interment of hundreds, probably thousands of childrens’ bodies in unmarked mass graves.

17/ It shouldn’t need saying, but somehow it does: these are not victimless crimes. The commission & government want to construct an incontestable narrative for public consumption as opposed to providing truth & justice to survivors. And, of course, to those who did not survive.

18/ Survivors don’t just need generalized information about forced family separation; they need to know the truth about who they are. They don’t need confirmation that children were disappeared, trafficked & buried in mass graves; they need to know what happened to their babies.

19/ They don’t just need to know who paid for vaccine trials – they need to know if they were experimented upon. This is about people. Real people. Living people. It shouldn’t be a political issue, but it has been reduced to one.

20/ Survivors have the right under European Human Rights Law to be meaningfully involved in this investigation into their abuse. They haven’t been. They have the right under EU Data Protection Law to access to the information held about them in the commission archive.

21/ This government has voted to construct a roadblock between survivors & their rights.

But this doesn’t have to be the last word: public pressure, sustained attention, & respect for the expertise of survivors groups and advocates can still change things.

22/ But the fact is that people will die without the answers for which they have fought for years because of what the government did last week. That just batters me.

23/ What can we do? E-mail @rodericogorman, @MichealMartinTD, @LeoVaradkar and your representatives to tell them that you are watching progress on this issue keenly. Demand answers: why was the legislation fast tracked?

24/ What’s the legal basis for the claim that the commission would otherwise destroy the archive? If they could legislate to send a database to Túsla, why couldn’t they legislate to unseal? Are they aware of how Túsla has treated survivors trying to access information?

25/ Why do they believe that the unfit for purpose 2004 act supercedes 2018 EU data protection legislation?

& Continue to boost the voices of survivors & advocates. Whatever platforms are available to you, use them. Send links & articles to people outside the social mediaverse.

26/ And have hard conversations with family and friends about the need for truth and justice NOW.

International allies - please signal boost this issue! We need your help. There's nothing like a bit of global disdain to get Irish politicians up off their arses.

27/ Like @drvconway said on @TortoiseShack podcast the other day: we are the generation that achieved marriage equality, that got the 8th repealed. The political will wasn’t there, but we created it. We can achieve justice and truth for survivors of the mother and baby homes too.

28/ Keep the pressure on, and don’t let the spin win.

Fin/