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SPeaking from the heart
'I never fought with her over toys': Here is Anne Ferris's moving Dáil speech about her sister
She was speaking during a Dáil debate on mother and baby homes.
6.08pm, 17 Jul 2014
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WHEN TDs GATHERED in the Dáil chamber this afternoon to debate the recent scandal over mother and baby homes, we got a sensitive and respectful exchange of views.
But what we hadn’t reckoned for, was the powerful and heartfelt testimony of Wicklow TD Anne Ferris.
At times fighting back tears, but remaining composed throughout, the Labour deputy offered, for the Oireachtas record, her own unique personal experience of Ireland’s mother and baby home system.
“Minister, two weeks ago I met my younger sister for tea across the road in the Merrion Hotel,” she began.
It was unusual, because it was the first time we had ever shared a pot of tea.
Before that day, two weeks ago, I had never laid eyes on my sister.Each of us was adopted into a different mother and baby home, into different families, eventually ending up living in different countries.Sitting together, we looked like sisters, but we didn’t talk like sisters.
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Where other sisters in our age group have shared experiences and family history, we have just had a very long, long gap in our lives.I never played childhood games with this sister. I never fought with her over toys. We never skipped together or climbed trees.She wasn’t handed down my old clothes.We didn’t go to school together, or to discos, or fight over boys.She doesn’t know my children and I’ve never met hers.
Later in her remarks, Ferris called for the Commission of Investigation into the mother and baby homes to be “all-embracing”, noting that her status as a TD made her “lucky”, and that “other people with similar backgrounds” would have been “barricaded” in the visitor’s gallery of the Dáil.
Stories like my story and my sister’s story demonstrate why this needs to a broad and all-embracing inquiry.The mother and baby homes, the adoption process, the Magdalene laundries, the private nursing homes, the country homes, the Church hierarchies, the religious organisations and the State are all part of a very large jigsaw puzzle that must be looked at in its entirety.
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@RJ.Fallon: we have nothing to call our own its all been given away by our treasous politicians….this republic has been sold right under our feet and stupid paddy doesnt give a f@@k.
@BananaRepublic1922:
Good.
I rather see them sold than the Irish taxpayer being on the hook for them
I worked in the semi state sector for years, my god the people in them would get some fright if there jobs were actually at risk.
We can all sympathise with how they may feel, seeing their country being sold out from under them, but beating the ever loving sh.. it out of a 75 year old man isn’t the way to solve anything. That’s the sort of thing that makes their cause worthless, it makes them worse than those they’re angry about. A big muscled lad picking on the weakest in society, yeah that sends a great message.
With a meeting of eurozone finance ministers set for 21 June, teams of experts from the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have met with the Greek government in recent days to discuss its privatisation drive, an overhaul of the civil service and the deregulation of the state-dominated energy market.
In a statement that gave no detail on the agreement, the EU’s executive said a staff-level accord had been reached.
This is the main piece of the article that deserves attention. The people they carried out the attack were labelled as being far right wing by the office of the countries left-wing leader. A cynical person would question this.
Perhaps the attackers were people that voted for Tsipras and Syriza in 2015 and now are utterly dismayed at how their country is and sold out from under their feet.
In any event I don’t know I wasn’t there.
The sad thing is there is no end in sight, Greece cannot effectively survive in the euro it is the totally wrong currency for them.
@John Fergus: don’t get me wrong it’s tragic what happened. Those responsible for beating a 75-year-old man should be figuratively hung. That being said the official line on this is likely skewed to benefit those giving it.
@John Fergus: Currency? If your economy was a basket case to begin with, does it matter much about the currency? Interestingly, most Greeks want to stay in the Euro, apparently – go figure?
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