Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Irish Mirror

National

Sarah Barrett

Mother and baby home survivors reveal hurt on RTE Liveline over exclusion from redress scheme

Joe Duffy Micheal Martin Carine Eamon Jean Olga

Legislation for the provision of a mother-and-baby institution redress scheme will return to the Dáil this week.

The bill has been strongly criticised by survivors' groups, who say it unfairly excludes children who spent less than six months in an institution and is creating division among survivors.

On Monday’s episode of RTÉ Liveline, several survivors who were mothers and children who had been adopted from a Mother and Baby home, featured on the show discussing the Mother and Baby Homes redress scheme.

Joe Duffy revealed on the show that around 24,000 people were excluded from the scheme.

Under the scheme, the Government agreed that a Scheme should be established which would include a financial payment and a form of enhanced medical card.

There will be a general payment to recognise time spent in the institution, harsh conditions, emotional abuse and other forms of mistreatment, stigma and trauma experienced while resident in a Mother and Baby or County Home Institution, and a work related payment.

According to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, a person will be eligible for a general payment if they were either:

A pregnant or unmarried mother who was resident in a Mother and Baby or County Home Institution for any period of time, including when they were under 18 years of age at the time of being pregnant.

A person who was resident as a child in a Mother and Baby or County Home Institution for a period of six months or more.

Speaking to Joe Duffy, callers revealed their anger and hurt at being excluded from the redress scheme, with the level of the financial payment will depend on the amount of time spent in one of the institutions.

The scheme means any child who was resident for under 6 months in a Mother and Baby home will not qualify for a payment, or relatives of any woman who died before the state’s public apology in January 2021, will not qualify to claim on behalf of the women.

Caller Jean was a resident of a Mother and Baby Home for 5 months and 20 days.

She is 11 days short of eligibility for payment under the Former Resident Redress Scheme.

Jean discovered she wouldn’t be eligible and said: “They have excluded anyone that was there less than 6 months, I was there for 5 months and 20 days,”

“It’s just mad the whole thing, and it has made my time there irrelevant, and it’s saying I wasn’t there long enough to be relevant.”

“I spent a short time in an orphanage too, it took me a year to get information on the mother and baby home, and I can’t get information about me in the orphanage, there is no record, I’m completely excluded.”

“If you’re just over 6 months, do you have clarity? It's idiotic, and doesn’t make sense to me.”

“You couldn’t stay at home, and have a child out of wedlock at the time.”

“My mother was 22 when I was born.”

Another caller Catherine said the exclusion was a ‘joke’ that the government is setting limits, that any person, or woman or a child, all suffered.

Catherine said: “I think it’s a joke, the government are saying we’re sorry this happened to you, they are setting limits on everything, which is ridiculous, any woman or child that entered there, they all suffered, it's still having consequences on them,

She wanted to highlight that her mother wasn’t any less of person, just because she passed away before the public apology by Micheal Martin, adding: “The issue I want to highlight is my mother passed away in January 2021, her family and I aren’t allowed to get redress on her behalf, the women who passed away before the apology deserve the same redress as those after the apology.”

“13th January 2021 you’re not eligible. It’s their cut-off date, it just doesn’t make sense”

“My mother had my sister in a mother and baby home, I’m still searching for her, she was born in Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary in 1968, she was only 16, she suffered horrendously, I want to get redress on her behalf, to speak for her, she counts as everyone woman did, and every other child did.”

“She told me bits and pieces, she didn’t like speaking about it, she was very stigmatised, and felt shame, my grandparents sent her away, they told her she would be an outcast and never married.”

“She told me she had a little girl, she worked in the laundry and worked in the nursery. She was with my sister for five months, before she was taken away, my Mum was discharged after 5 months, she never wanted to give my sister away. She didn’t have a choice”

“My mother still counts, and I want to be her voice.”

“The stories behind these women and their families are awful.”

“The information they can’t disclose to me, all the records in the Abbey are very sketchy”

Caller Mary revealed she had been raped at 13, and her baby was taken from her, and adopted: “I was talking to on the 13th of January, I was 13 when I was in a mother and baby home, I wasn’t there too long, I was there a month before the baby was born, my father came and took me away.

“In my opinion I don’t think it can be solved, in a one size fit all situation, it’s different for every person that was there, it’s so sad, it’s so controlling, and it’s so, if they could just stand back and look and have compassion, to this day, there’s people that have never spoken and never will about their experience.”

Joe said: “How did you end up there when you were 13.”

“It would be difficult even now, a 13 year old give birth to your baby, and then having to walk away. We were all mothers. If you didn’t come home with a baby or not, I turned into a mother after that, I was never the same.”

“I was sent there because that was had to happen, my parents didn’t want to send me there, they pleaded and they fought, they had no say, they fought with the catholic church, I think the whole thing, if I had murdered someone would I have been treated better,”

“Everyone was affected by this, I think they have to understand that it is not only that a girl had to leave and give birth, but the psychological effect it had on everybody, I just can’t explain or put it into words how much I changed my life and my family's life. They were crying at me going out the door, and not being allowed to come see me.”

“It was so controlled, I don’t know how they coped, I used to tell my mother how she coped, and she said she prayed, and my father didn’t talk or mention it.”

“All this unnecessary pain in people’s lives, if they can still to this day say we will talk, and we will listen and we’ll understand.

“It was a cruel injustice on society, and society had to go along with it, nobody had a say.”

“They thought it was my appendix, and they operated and discovered I was pregnant and told my parents,” Mary said.

Olga from Cork, had been in the Bessboro Mother and Baby home, and had experienced postnatal depression.

“I was there for 9 months, my first baby was taken from me at 1am in the morning, she was 3 months, and I was breastfeeding her, she wouldn’t be eligible now.”

Olga said: “It’s the aftermath of it, the adoption was by force, they took the baby from me, I didn’t know what they were doing, the day before they had brought me into Cork, and i bought a beautiful pink baby suit, and I thought I was going home, they sat at the back of the bus, I’m now 65, and I can still see the baby’s suit, she was a healthy baby.”

“They told me to come downstairs, she was gone, I found her afterwards, she was in Co. Mayo, you still that when you meet her that you can still hold her when she’s 18, I still had milk in my breasts, I was very depressed for a long time, I started drinking a lot, and got pregnant again at 19, I wasn’t allowed hold that baby, the same thing they did to me.”

“The second baby was also 3 months old, I’m now 65, it was Halloween weekend, it’s a very hard time for me.”

“I think it’s awful to exclude the people, they suffered too, you were stigmatised, a priest was going to bless me, look I’m very depressed, the priest told me I had committed a sin.”

Other callers that were children who had been in a Mother and Baby home and adopted, and were under the six months in a home shared their stories and thoughts on the exclusion from the scheme.

Caller Eamon was a resident in one of the homes and was adopted at 3 weeks, he spoke of feeling ‘hurt’ and ‘excluded’, and said he would love to see the reasoning behind the scheme.

“I was adopted around 3 weeks, when I saw this it struck a chord, that yet again I’m not being acknowledged, made me feel more of an ‘other’.”

“That it doesn't matter.”

“I’d love to know where the state thinks I was.”

“I think it’s disgraceful, a county procedure that involves people that is fundamental to your existence as a human being, here we go again, it’s because the state they are dealing with their failings, the vast majority of children weren’t there 6 months, was the trauma of being adopted, does that not matter. The children were adopted quickly”

“I would love to see the reasoning behind this 6 months,”

The last caller Martin, was born on the Navan Road in the 1960’s, and compared the scheme to the Book of Quantum that advises the monetary compensation for personal injuries in Ireland.

Martin revealed he was ‘angry’ and said: “As Eamon said before me, what I would have said, how can you monetise what happened, it’s an overly legal exercise, how many children were adopted out and when,”

“No one knows the true figures, it’s not 24,000+, the problem with us, it’s like the book of quantum, paying out for injuries, so much for an arm, so much for legs.”

“It’s so different from everyone, you can’t put a value on it, how can you estimate.”

“I can’t help but feel angry at this move, my big worry was there weren’t enough to manage this.”

“I’m heartbroken at some of the stories, I don’t know the circumstances around my own birth, my mother wrote to

“If it’s June 8th I’m entitled, if it’s July 8th I’m not, it’s a month's difference.”

“I’m glad I have a dark sense of humour, but it’s lost in me.”

“The relationship with your mother is fundamental to your health.”

Survivors that are now resident outside of Ireland may well be eligible for compensation such as persons residing in America, Canada, Britain and other countries.

According to Quinns solicitors, the list of institutions investigated by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission were:

1) Ard Mhuire, Dunboyne, Co Meath;
2) Belmont (Flatlets), Belmont Ave, Dublin 4;
3) Bessboro House, Blackrock, Cork;
4) Bethany Home, originally Blackhall Place, Dublin 7 and from 1934 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6;
5) Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, Co. Galway;
6) Denny House, Eglinton Rd, Dublin 4, originally Magdalen Home, 8 Lower Leeson St, Dublin 2;
7) Kilrush, Cooraclare Rd, Co. Clare;
8) Manor House, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath;
9) Ms. Carr’s (Flatlets), 16 Northbrook Rd, Dublin 6;
10) Regina Coeli Hostel, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7, and
11) Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co Tipperary;
12) St. Gerard’s, originally 39, Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1.
13) St. Patrick’s, Navan Road, Dublin 7 (originally known as Pelletstown; and subsequent transfer to Eglinton House, Eglinton Rd, Dublin 4)
14) The Castle, Newtowncunningham, Co. Donegal.