I am conscious that this will be my last contribution, and I am sure that of others, before we head off for the Easter holidays. The Easter celebrations have a particular resonance in Ireland because we celebrate the parts of our history where we were valiant. We will probably visit commemoration sites and read testimony on walls about a nation that proudly professed that it would cherish all of its children equally. I hope those of us at those commemorations can reflect on the motion before us and think about the 923 children who were not held to that standard. They are children whose names and the fact they existed is known through birth certs, but we know nothing of how they died and where they were laid to rest. We all know that history is a continuum. When we go to those commemorations and speak of being part of a republican ilk, we know each one of those lines. The failures that befell babies in Bessborough were similar to those of the women and children who were incarcerated, were forced to engage in vaccine trials and forced adoptions, and were cruelly treated. They were failed but we become part of that failure when we become complicit in the cover-up and when we pour cement to ensure we can never establish the facts. We may never be able to find their little bodies. In becoming complicit, we in this Chamber become part of the continuum of failure that has not yet led to a true reckoning of ourselves as a State. As a nation, we are defined not only by what we choose to commemorate but also by how we choose to commemorate it. In the coming two weeks we will talk about the parts of our history where we were valiant but at the same time we will be complicit in a scenario where we pour cement over a place where 923 babies are buried. That is a failure of our own history.

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