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JAMES REILLY HAS said that the terms of reference for the mother-and-baby homes inquiry must not be too broad, otherwise it will be “flawed from the start”.
The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs was criticised this week by the Bethany Survivors’ Group for not including the Westbank Orphanage in Greystones in the investigation.
Bethany Home, a Protestant home on Dublin’s Orwell Road for unmarried mothers lived and their young children, will itself be included in the inquiry.
However, members of the group believe the investigation must also examine “survivors’ experiences after they left the gates” of mother-and-baby homes.
Group spokesperson Niall Meehan said that there are examples of babies being transferred from Bethany Home to Westbank. He said that Colm Begely was sent to the orphanage when he was just one year old.
Colm was born in Bethany in 1966, but his real misery began when he was sent to the Westbank Orphanage in Greystones in 1967. He suffered injections for bed-wetting and beatings with electric flexes. He was sent to work as a child labourer on farms in Northern Ireland.
At age 18 in 1984, Colm was sent with £10 from Westbank to a Salvation Army hostel in London. Colm ended up drinking on the streets for a year before gradually putting his life together. What extra would Westbank need to have done to Colm for the State to take an interest?
Meehan also said that some of the children in the orphanage were physically and sexually abused.
Focus
When speaking to the Oireachtas Health and Children Committee on Thursday, Reilly said that the purpose of the inquiry must not be diluted.
He said that his Department needed to give “a clear, precise set of terms of reference to the Commission to ensure that a wide range of factors related to mother-and-baby homes is examined in great detail by the Commission”.
We know that at the heart of the desire to get to the truth is the suggestion that bodies of hundreds of children were buried in the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway. There is a clear consensus around the need to thoroughly examine the manner in which Ireland treated many mothers who had babies in mother-and-baby homes.
If we set the terms incorrectly, the result may be that the Commission is robbed of an opportunity to do its work successfully in a time span that is reasonable and in an efficient manner.
Reilly said that he has met with many groups who want certain institutions other than mother-and-baby homes to be included under the remit of the inquiry.
However, he noted that the Commission “cannot be viewed as a vehicle to inquire into all matters where there was a deficit in the treatment of people”.
Reilly added that the Oireachtas may decide that some of the issues raised by interest groups are “worthy of separate examination”.
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Again, the mentality of the irish people has been shown to have been damaged by the monopoly on all things moral and ethical by a morally and ethically corrupt church……
A very true point Gavin.
What surprises me most is how so many people were told by their parents to avoid a certain priest or who knew that bad things happened in some of these childrens “homes” (inverted commas as these places were anything but homely). So many Irish people had far more than an inkling that children were being hurt and turned a blind eye rather than stand up against the might of the Church.
My tummies very sick, do something about this , dont hide it, the sad children sad mothers the pain , no body should suffer,
Another legal profession gravy train departs the station, expect a few new yachts and villas.
I met Minister Reilly as part of his series of meetings and I must say he has an unenviable task. I do hope he gets this right in the interest of truth and healing for all those who experienced M&B homes. I also hope we get a better understanding of this chapter in our past so we can learn and move on as a country.
Ok so let us confine it to Murder, crimnal neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and mental abuse. We also need to know what the authorities knew and who were involved. We also need to know if conflicts of interest exist ie some Government officals direct family were involved ie mammy’s, aunties, daddies or uncles were involved directly…..they should have no part in this investagation. The same goes for the Judical system and Gardai.
Many many people were somehow invovled in the cover up of the abuse – even if it was just a mother warning her child to stay away from a certain priest because she had heard things from other mothers about him.
If we want a truly independent investigation, then somebody from outside the State should carry it out.
There were a number of girls in my class in primary school who lived in the local orphanage. They appeared to be happy, – as a matter of fact we used to envy them because they would tell us about the fun they had in the dormitories and getting up to stuff behind the nuns’ backs. They were probably lucky – not all orphanages were happy places.
@molly maybe they where laughing on the outside and dying on the inside, some children tell stories on how they wish it was. but thats not to say some of these orphanages where not run properly but in colms case it was not.
Well if your on the compo train your not going to say to were happy now.
Of course they should consider all institutions. But tying it to institutions is a huge mistake. Rather they should focus on the issues involved: infant mortality rates; adoption practices; Vaccine trials and medical experimentation; forced labour and incarceration of unmarried girls and women who gave birth to babies or were seen to be ‘at risk’ of becoming mothers; conditions in the institutions, including neglect, denial of adequate medical care and cruel punishment of unmarried mothers and their infants and children; and burials of unmarried mothers and their children who remained in recarceral institutions. There’s every expectation they’ll continue to get it wrong. That won’t stop us, though.
Reilly – the heel test – you better have as you said you did !
i am glad Bethany house has been recognised and Orphanages should be included, i think it is a disgrace this is taking so long to get of the ground. i don’t think religion should come into it . all cases should be looked at, why make someone more worthy than the other thats just another form of abuse
Noreen, I dont think religion nor the church can be left out of this because all the homes, orphanages, hospitals etc were set up by church an ran by the nuns. Why do you think they have holy names.Saint this that or the other.
have your say