Senator Bacik seeks Debates on the Preservation of our History, and on Maternity Services

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: Will the Leader arrange a debate on the timing of debates? It was deeply ironic that yesterday on the same day we debated the welcome initiative relating to children's rights, we also debated the outrageous cuts to the number of SNAs for children with special needs. It is wrong that on the one hand the Government is speaking forcefully about the rights of children while, on the other, it is cutting services to vulnerable children.

Senators: Hear, hear.

Senator Ivana Bacik: I also seek a debate on the preservation of our history. This has been an historic week in the context of political upheaval and resignations. I refer to a matter raised by Senator Quinn weeks ago regarding the National Archives.

It has been proposed that the National Archives of Ireland and the Irish Manuscripts Commission should be merged into the National Library of Ireland, which has given rise to an enormous concern among archivists and historians. This was mooted in October 2008 and Senator Quinn raised the proposal in this House on 20 January. The proposal has generated considerable publicity and a good deal of controversy and I seek a debate on it and for the Government to inform Members whether it intends to stand over it. It would be against all current thinking on the need to preserve national archives independently and would, as some commentators have remarked, enable us to mark the 90th anniversary of the Four Courts bombardment in a highly disturbing fashion, in that it again would result in the downgrading of the preservation of our records.

Finally, on foot of the excellent “Prime Time” documentary broadcast last week, I seek a debate on maternity services and on the need for an inquiry into the barbaric practice of symphysiotomy. It appears as though this practice was carried out in Irish maternity hospitals until the mid-1980s, long after it had been utterly discredited in maternity hospitals elsewhere. An independent inquiry is needed in this regard and the Minister for Health and Children has not given an adequate response as to the reason she will not permit one. I wish to express my support of both the survivors of symphysiotomy and of AIMS Ireland, an organisation which seeks improvements in maternity services in Ireland, in its call for a comprehensive debate on the issue of consent in maternity care, the treatment of women in maternity hospitals and on the reason an independent inquiry is not being held into the barbaric practice of symphysiotomy.