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FORMER RESIDENTS FROM the Mother and Baby Home at Tuam have described the experience of being taken away from their mothers following today’s revelation about the mass grave at the site.
Earlier today, it was announced that the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes discovered a significant number of human remains in what appears to be a decommissioned sewage chamber in Tuam.
The Commission has completed two test excavations of the Galway site and today confirmed that “significant quantities of human remains have been discovered” in a structure which appears to be “related to the treatment/containment of sewerage and/or wastewater”.
The structure where the remains were found is long and divided into 20 chambers. The Commission is not yet clear if it was ever used for sewerage or wastewater.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Liveline with Joe Duffy, former residents who were born in the home, and remained there during the early years of their life, and people who helped to unearth the case spoke of their experience.
Historian Catherine Corless, whose work was pivotal in making the case public in 2014, said that the septic tank had stopped being used for its intended use in the late-1930s, and said there could be remains from as many as almost 800 children in the mass grave.
“I have 798 names of children who died in the home,” she said. “We know they’re not buried with their own families – I checked that out. And now we have that answer… and as I said it was former septic tanks that belonged to the workhouse.”
She added that Bon Secours need to apologise for a statement made on their behalf by the Communications Clinic in 2014, which rejected the idea that a mass grave would be found there.
One former resident, PJ Haverty, was born there in 1951, and spent six years at the Tuam home.
“The women did all the work, while the nuns prayed,” he said. “I don’t know what God they were praying to.”
He said his mother had to leave when he was a year old, as the people who ran the home did not want a bond to develop between mother and son.
She got work in Tuam, and every time she would head off to work she would come down and knock on that door and plead with the nuns to let her see her son. They always said “no, go away”.
He was later fostered out, but found his mother again years later in Brixton, south London.
“I was one of the lucky ones – I got into a good foster home and got to meet my mother again after many, many years,” he said.
He said he had never seen any indication of what was going on, in terms of mass graves at the home, but said that he and other children had been locked up and had been exposed to so little of the outside world that he didn’t even know what Christmas was.
“We had no toys at Christmas there. There was no love, and there was no care,” he said.
I don’t call it a home. It was a prison. You look out the window and all you saw was high walls all the way round.
Other survivors, Thomas Ward, and a man called Christopher said that were born in the home and the latter did remember seeing the septic tank at the site.
Christopher described how his mother was also not let see her son, but would cycle 22 miles to and from Tuam every weekend from Galway city to try to be let in.
All callers were unanimous in their praise for Corless in raising awareness of the case which helped lead to today’s announcement.
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Can’t believe they are once again going to reward people for not working. Absolute redesign of unemployment payments are needed. Payable for a maximum of 1 month in a 12 month period. In a time of full employment, long-term jobseekers allowances should be abolished.
@Tommy Roche: how on earth do you expect travellers to ever work?!!!! How do you expect numerous drug gangs members to work?! How do you expect carrier single mothers to work?! How do you expect people with hundreds criminal convictions to work?!
@Tommy Roche: Again how do you expect crowd people seat 24/7 outside former Crown Paints in Coolock, commit arsons, criminal damage, acts of intimidation and blocking traffic for people coming from work… without increasing their job seekers allowance?!!! Don’t be so cruel!
@Sergej Simonov: drug gang members/ people with 100s of convictions , that’s a life choice that can be changed, not easily but it’s no excuse for not being able to work. Being a traveller doesn’t mean you can’t work either,
@Tommy Roche: Yes let’s prosecute the minority for the fee that don’t work. Typical right wing conservative sound bite. You’d love a bit of austerity wouldn’t you Tommy. We’re not at full employment, some of those figures are slave Labour CE and TUS schemes where the client has absolutely ZERO prospects of getting a job. We need to clamp down hard on tax avoidance from multinationals. Only difference between a scrote living in Blackrock and a scrote in living in Rossfield in Tallaght is the type of clothes they wear. We all remember the crash and the white collar gangsters who got away with it. Every single year it’s people like you who come out with their right wing agenda
@Alan: I think you’ll find the scrote uniform of choice is pretty consistent no matter what town or village they’re from. Canada Goose jacket, North Face tracksuit and some type of electric bike/scooter tells you all you need to know from a mile off.
@CP: he’s being facetious- ignore him
@Alan: Right wing agenda…lol. Imagine being a taxpayer who’s sick of supporting my neighbour up the road, who’s never paid a cent income tax in his life, was bragging only last week about getting a lump sum fuel payment of over €450 and is at this moment spending it in a Dortmund pub !! He, and thousands of others like him don’t have zero prospects of getting a job. They don’t WANT a job. At the current time, anyone seeking employment should have no trouble finding a job. One huge issue is those deemed within SW as ‘unemployable’. Change the payment name to Unemployable Allowance and maybe the stigma would make them rethink their life choices.
@Sergej Simonov: stop making excuses
@Shane O Mac: the thing is they’re not “excuses”, they’re facts. Would you employ any of the people he mentioned? I wouldn’t. Would pay for a fancy meal being served by Anto with multiple convictions, reeking of weed greeting you with a stooorrrry bud? What jobs should they do? And would you be willing to make someone else unemployed to facilitate them? The fact is if you stop their pay they will get their money by illegal means, you could be their victim. I’m all for stopping double payments and Christmas bonuses for long-term unemployed but in the real world you can’t cut them off.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: so pay them not to commit crime, you’re funny.
@Tommy Roche: Very small minority of people that engage in that behaviour. Should we tell John Doe up the road with an intellectual disability to get of his hxxle to and get a job. It is right wing stigmatising, label anyone who hasn’t worked a day In their life as lazy, not bothering to work, maybe turn your attention to the white collar capitalist elite who sold their souls to the IMF and in turn the Irish government at the time absolutely destroyed the economy with massive tax hikes, massive austerity measures, unprecedented reduction of government spending. You might not have being affected but 1000s did and are still suffering. Capitalism is greed. What we need is a social democratic system of socialism. So please get off your high horse
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: thanks for the compliment but I’m not trying to be funny, I’m being factual. You live in this imaginary world where you can cut people off from any source of state help and suddenly they will see the error of their ways and generations of poor role models will count for nothing and Anto will don a 3 piece suit, a D4 accent and start selling mortgages for AIB. I live in the real world where giving people state help keeps them from costing the tax payers more in other ways. Every country on the planet has a portion of their population who unemployable. We’re not North Korea were they’re allowed to die of hunger. Even the USA has a welfare system.
@Sergej Simonov: I met a big group of coloock protesters during the summer a lot of mothers and nearly all of them in employment. Troll
@Paul Gorry: watch the smile on pascal face. That grin always show the contempt for the working class people. The biggest the smile the more we will get fecked. I remember how ecstatic he was to present the 5 euros increase a week for pension.
watch that smile
As usual, nothing ever for the working man. Except some pathetic 1% USC cut.
@Daniel Skelton: Better than no cut but could be way better than 1% indeed.
@Daniel Skelton: wrong, working person will be better off by over 1000, those with children even more so
@Pat Hazzard: and the working person will also be worse off by 1000 euro’s because of levy’s etc; typical Leprechaun economics.
@Pat Hazzard: Here, have a read of this from the Independent, and how any benefits we get in the budget will be negated for the most part by taxes and levies. The only one I actually agree with is what is being proposed for vapes and cigarettes, after all, it took me long enough to give them up, but the rest of the increases are going to hit families that are already hard pressed to make ends meet as it is.
@Jack Cass: the levys add up to about 200 pa
@Pat Hazzard: yes divide that 1000 by 12, then divide that by 4, its less than 20 euros so no were are not better off, being on the dole is better off. The working man always gets shafted
@paul dutton: wait until you see what happens in the UK. Things could be worse
@Daniel Skelton: the majority of the WORKING man is doing other jobs and cash in hand. So stop making up excuses
@paul dutton: or just divide by 52. Unless you’re living in a 48 week year.
The budget will not deliver anything to one section of society, the pensioners affected by the 2012 legislation which denied them a pension if they did not have 520 credits. People who took the time out to raise families, look after elderly, infirm and incapacitated relatives in a time when there was no carers allowance or childcare provision. The only thing they are entitled to this week is a free flu shot.
I predict a huge nothing burger from paschal the globalist for those of us that work, scrap carbon taxes and save the people.
@087 bed: Pachal isn’t actually the minister for Finance, but glad to see your consistency with just the one type of tax that you have an issue with.
@087 bed: I work, I’m benefitting so is my other half.
@Jason Memail: well he did an enormous amount of damage to the country in past budgets as minister for finance, so. This is what they really on our wonderful Fg, Irish who have amnesia
@Jason Memail: Donohue is a piece of work, he sent me a vicious email once upon a time after i addressed his intimidation and propaganda when the chamber was talking marijuana use. He’s a belligerent Tory who did a lot of harm when given the finance role.
I always seem to fall into the category that literally gets noting back !
Hashtag: sick of it !
@kevin rock: are you between a rock and a hard place?
Opportunity to tackle the
HOUSING CRISIS
@RIP: Whilst simultaneously tackling net immigration
@Mick Joe: we’ll need immigrants to build the houses
@Dermot Blaine: They’re one of the primary reasons we have a housing crisis.
@Dermot Blaine: please explain. The import of cheap foreign labour has resulted in the exodus of Irish high skilled workers that we’re building 70,000 houses per year 15 years ago . The rates of pay have only increased slightly from the crash, hence now we have a very large shortage of plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, carpenters etc. There isn’t the capacity to build more homes, hence the government trying to entice Irish skilled construction workers back, which has failed miserably.
@Dermot Blaine: So they are no longer Doctors and Dentists but in actual fact plumbers, and brickies?
Hard to keep up these days.
The USC should be gone completely at this stage.
Considering the money available now to this government, the budget is falling short of what could comfortably be delivered.
There’s a little being offered but there could and should be a lot more.
A government that has no excuses relating to lack of money ,yet absolutely no creativity or inventiveness to serve the citizens of the country. God love us all when the economy takes a turn, the government will feed us to the wolves.
Pribe the voters
Win …..
Collapse
Repeat …..
Can some one clarify please. What a out a single pension with no children. Just on there own. What will the budget do for them. Besides extra 12 € a week. Do they not get any double payment except x ma’s
@John Flanagan: increase in pension, increase in fuel allowance, increase in living alone allowance, double pension payment
@John Flanagan: You get a double payment if you can prove you can use the correct version of there, their or they’re.
National children hosp, security hut, bike shed, millions to IPAS business…just think while they give away money coming up to an election!
Buying votes.
Nothing done to alleviate housing, in fact the very opposite.
Failure from FFG as usual.
Give away budget before elections. But realise they give back our own payed tax money but pretend that it’s theirs.
@hans vos: this isn’t a giveaway budget. Majority of people getting little to sweet FA from this budget. Give away budget my hole.
@hans vos: SF supporters must be very confused as the government has stole their thunder and even outdid them.
@hans vos: they’re giving away less than in previous years. Was the last 3 budgets to get votes too? Answer is yes. That’s literally the whole point
@hans vos: “but pretend that it’s theirs”? Eh, how is it you think societies are funded? Everyone KNOWS it’s by the tax take, be it Corporate, VAT, Income etc.
So, no, no one, including those is Govt is pretending it’s anything other then the Tax take being distributed.
@thomas molloy: it’s not the first time that they have a budget before elections and than go back on their words after.
@Tricia G28: Societies are funded with tax money payed by company’s and public. Spending by government is taxpayers money. They know of cause but still pretend that they do us a favor when the spent it.
Not for the ordinary people.
@Áine G: wrong, budget will benefit everyone
@Áine G: what do you consider ‘ordinary people’ I genuinely can’t see any cohort that has been left out if leaks are to be believed.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four-star daydream
@u6ZzANzx: think ill me a football team
Money don’t get everything it’s true
What it don’t get, I can’t use
Now gimme money, that’s what I want
@Modern Irish Dad: the best things in life are free..
@peter willekens: Mr Willekens you can keep ‘em for the birds and bees.
Before the election the government throw bones to the dog
To make happy the dog
@Hugo Omar Martinez: you’re right. It would be better if they threw no bones, isn’t that right?. Then you can moan about them doing nuttin”
USC was brought in as a temporary measure they should have abolished it
Buying the vote. They are just giving us our own money back, and if it wasn’t an election year, this budget would be very different. The only people that should be benefiting is the people going out to work and the vulnerable people in society. We have full employment people shouldn’t be paid to stay at home.
@Chris Lane: The people going out to work just got a tax cut or did you miss that part?
@Chris Lane: Which, for the average paid worker, is less than the increase of those that don’t work got.
@Tricia G28: so they aren’t giving anything but they will expect ye to be happy that they are not going to take quite as much in this one area were they are riding us workers raw. As for energy credits ye can stick them up your holes. Just stop the cartels gouging us left right and centre and we wouldn’t need it. All its doing is transferring our money to there mates and prolonging the gouging.
@Tricia G28: a pathetic cut that won’t make a difference.
I wonder what’s been done for the early years sector, it’s on the brink of total collapse.
@Rach: Here here.
@Anthony Curran: ss’zzz
Going to get a new Ouija board with the extra dole money. Thanks to all the workers!
…must be funny in a rich man’s world.
Serves majority of hospitality sector right. You reap what you sow hotels. Triple price hotels when concerts on. Hahaha. Wouldn’t stay in a hotel in rep of Ireland ever again, North of Ireland place to go, Belfast is the spot. From a southerner BTW.
@Bills n Stuff: don’t put highly funded hotels in same boat as small cafes and restaurants
I’m reducing my active contribution to the economy. They’re a bunch of tight fisted criminals. Taxpayer screwed again.
@Fintan Stack: Cry some more
@Vince Cable: get back out canvassing
@Fintan Stack: I’m a taxpayer, and I’ve done just fine.
2.1 billion for foreigners to settle in Ireland . The politicans are very generous with tax payers money. All people who have a vote in the upcoming general election use it.
Another sh itsh ow
A few good initiatives that will make a difference like school books, college reg fee reduction. These are things that two income middle class families will see a benefit of. I didnt expect much and we got a little. It could have been better but could also have been worse. People with young families seem to have gotten some good news and that’s important and also the companion travel I think is really good.
I won’t be voting for this government didn’t buy my vote
Hands up if you are currently working on the Sinn Fein Troll Factory?
Finally free of the Quinn levy. How much did he cost us in the end?
I’m
@David Hughes: lost for words?
We are not poor, we just suck at being poor, and I’m not referring to the Irish citizens.
Failte Ireland we can take off on the entrance to cafe
@Renars Pundurs: Interesting, although I don’t think they’re in cafes? Could be wrong, they are however in hotels, guest houses, hostels,
bed and breakfasts, self catering, caravan and camping and holiday camps.
Save Lebanese children from israeli terrorists
There are three dentists in the greater Dublin area I’m aware of that are still in the psri/medical card scheme for teeth – is fine Gael going to do anything about that ? cocked Up just like most healthcare!!
@Modern Irish Dad: but love dont give no compensation, love don’t pay no bills… Love kills.
have your say