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Irish Examiner
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Just over €65m paid out in mother and baby home redress scheme
Just over €65m has been so far paid out under the mother and baby home redress scheme. However, renewed calls have been made to end the "arbitrary exclusion" from the scheme of people who spent less than six months in a home as well as those who were in institutions not named in the final report. Labour leader Ivana Bacik has also hit out at the majority of religious orders who were involved in running mother and baby homes who have refused to pay into the scheme. Only two of eight religious bodies linked to mother and baby homes have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme despite lengthy negotiations. The Sisters of Bon Secours offered €12.97m, a sum deemed as meaningful and accepted by the Government. The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul proposed contributing a building to the scheme and this offer is being considered by the Government. A third religious body — the Sisters of St John of God — declined to contribute to the scheme but offered a conditional donation of €75,000 to be used for a charitable purpose associated with mother and baby home survivors. No offer from five religious bodies The remaining five bodies — the Congregation of Lady of the Good Shepherd; the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy; the Legion of Mary; and the Church of Ireland — made no offer. 'Sadly, many culpable religious orders refuse to pay redress or even acknowledge wrongdoing," Ms Bacik said. "Urgently, the Government must enact Labour's Civil Liability (Child Sexual Abuse Proceedings Unincorporated Bodies of Persons) Bill 2024. "This Bill would enable the State to compel religious orders to pay redress to survivors of abuse perpetrated within or by religious-run institutions, and also to survivors of mother and baby homes. "The bill, which was published last September, aims to provide a remedy for Government to address the legal obstruction tactics so routinely deployed by religious orders and their associated lay-run trusts. "These tactics are used to avoid having to pay redress to those who have endured abuse in institutions controlled by such orders. 'We have a dark and shameful past of institutional abuse in Ireland." For many decades, we have seen religious orders and institutions engaged in the covering up of this tragic history, with resulting injustice to survivors. "If we've learned anything as a nation, it is that accountability must be provided for survivors and victims of abuse," she said. Figures provided to Ms Bacik show that more than 6,460 applications have been made to the scheme, which opened in March 2024. Some 5,670 notices of determination have issued to applicants, over 81% of which contain an offer of benefits under the scheme. Applicants then have six months to consider their offer, before they need to respond to the Payment Office. Almost 5,000 payments are either processed and completed or in the process of being made and the total amount which has been paid out under the redress scheme to date is over €65m.
The Guardian
13-04-2025
- The Guardian
Ireland's mother-and-baby homes are a stain on the Catholic church - but this latest refusal to atone is a new low
There are some stories so horrifying that their details embed themselves in your flesh and haunt you for the rest of your days. The suffering of the women and babies – an estimated 170,000 of them – who were incarcerated and abused in the Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes that housed 'fallen women' is one such story. It is a scandal that is difficult to read about without experiencing an overwhelming feeling of disgust, from the testimonies of abuse and forced adoption, to the mass grave at the former St Mary's mother-and-baby home near Tuam, County Galway, which contained 796 bodies of babies and children. The nuns put many of them in a septic tank. There were no burial records. The efforts of survivors, campaigners and historians to bring these stories to light in the face of obstruction and indifference has been the work of decades. The Irish government made a formal apology in 2021 after a judicial commission report. Yet this story, and the human misery it has caused, is not over: the last home closed in 1996. There are living survivors, and people who are descended from the victims. The exhumation of the children's remains, so that they can be identified if possible and given a proper burial, is continuing. And then there is the question of redress. This week, it was reported that, of the eight religious organisations linked to Ireland's mother-and-baby homes, only two have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme. The Sisters of Bon Secours – the order that presided over the septic tank mass grave – offered €12.97m (about £11m), while the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul has proposed contributing a building to the scheme. A third religious body – the Sisters of St John of God – declined to contribute, saying there was 'no legal or moral' basis to do so as there was 'no evidence that our sisters there acted in any untoward manner', but offered a donation to survivors. The other five – the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy, the Legion of Mary and the (Anglican) Church of Ireland – made no offer. They gave various reasons – or excuses, depending on your viewpoint. Ireland's children's minister, Norma Foley, expressed her disappointment, saying that, while the state had admitted its role in the scandal, more should have been done by the church and the religious organisations. While public expression by the state of its culpability has been explicit and categorical, the remorse expressed on the religious side has been less clear-cut. Past statements from the orders involved such as 'with deep regret … we acknowledge that there are women who did not experience our refuge as a place of protection and care' and 'it is regrettable that the Magdalene homes had to exist at all' lack a certain tone of regret, shall we say. The Good Shepherd Sisters, as they are now known, have made particularly impressive use of grammatical gymnastics over the years ('We sincerely regret that women could have experienced hurt and hardship'). Perhaps most shocking was this: 'It was part of the system and the culture of the time.' Nothing from the nuns, or the Catholic church, has really come close to expressing true remorse. A 'definitive' apology in 2021 from Eamon Martin, Ireland's most senior church figure, was worded thus: 'I accept that the church was clearly part of that culture in which people were frequently stigmatised, judged and rejected. For that, and for the longlasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise.' Yet the church wasn't just part of that culture. It was the culture, saturating every aspect of life in Ireland, shaping public attitudes towards women and their babies, encouraging their shaming and ostracising. Some campaigners have called for church assets to be seized unless the institution contributes to a state-run redress scheme. Without a true acknowledgment of the pain that has been caused, how do you begin to move on from something so traumatic? Yes, there have been memorial events and gardens – in Dublin, a journey stone monument was unveiled in 2022, and the National Centre for Research and Remembrance is to hold records related to the institutional trauma, with a museum and exhibition space. Culturally, the scandal has been intelligently and sensitively revisited, from the novella and film Small Things Like These to the BBC drama The Woman in the Wall, and Sinéad O'Connor's previously unreleased The Magdalene Song. Liam Neeson is collaborating with Catherine Corless – the amateur historian who devoted many hours to painstaking research into St Mary's, and who battled on heroically despite widespread indifference when she tried to make the mass grave public – on a film, The Lost Children of Tuam. There is no chance of these children and their mothers being forgotten now, and that is meaningful. I was too young when I saw in 2002 The Magdalene Sisters, a drama which gave me a lifelong aversion to Irish nuns, so repugnant and sadistic was their behaviour towards the vulnerable women in their control. Being the granddaughter of a woman who was once tarred as 'illegitimate' – the bald cruelty of this term, of the thought of labelling a baby thus, is enough to bring tears to your eyes – perhaps led to my interest in this dark chapter of Irish history. My grandmother was born in a mother-and-baby home, but in Wales. It was no picnic, but had she been in Ireland – the country of her suspected father – even greater miseries would have awaited her. The treatment of children born out of wedlock in Ireland as 'an inferior subspecies' – then taoiseach Enda Kenny's words in 2014 – and the humiliation to which they were subjected is a stain on the church's history. Corless said in interview at the time that she had lost respect for the Catholic church. She is by no means alone in that. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author
The Independent
08-04-2025
- General
- The Independent
Only two religious bodies offer contributions to mother and baby redress scheme
Only two of eight religious bodies linked to mother and baby homes in Ireland have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme, a report has found. The Sisters of Bon Secours offered 12.97 million euro (about £11 million) – a sum deemed as meaningful and accepted by the Irish Government. The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul has proposed contributing a building to the scheme. That offer is to be considered by the Government. A third religious body – the Sisters of St John of God – declined to contribute to the scheme but offered a conditional donation of 75,000 euro (£64,000) to be used for a charitable purpose associated with mother and baby home survivors. The remaining five bodies – the Congregation of Lady of the Good Shepherd; the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy; the Legion of Mary; and the Church of Ireland – made no offer. The details were contained in a report compiled by Sheila Nunan, the independent negotiator appointed by the Government to engage with the organisations over financial redress. The negotiation was part of a bid to secure contributions from religious bodies towards the cost of the Government-established Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme. The scheme will cost more than 800 million euro (£680 million) and the Government had been seeking around 270 million (£231 million) in total from the religious bodies. A commission of investigation was set up in 2015 to examine homes run by the state and religious organisations where tens of thousands of unmarried Irish women were sent to have their babies. The commission found that almost 170,000 women and children passed through the institutions from 1922 until the last one closed in 1998. The investigation exposed the often harsh conditions and unforgiving regimes many women and children experienced in the institutions. Minister for Children Norma Foley expressed disappointment at the approach adopted by the majority of religious bodies to the redress scheme. 'The commission (of investigation) made significant findings in relation to the failings of the state and religious organisations who together ran mother and baby and county home institutions,' said Ms Foley. 'I know that people across Irish society, both religious and lay, have been distressed and appalled by the harsh conditions that women who became pregnant outside of marriage endured in these institutions. 'They had to face unfair, unwarranted and unbearable shame and stigma both inside the walls of the mother and baby homes and outside the walls from both state and society.' She added: 'The state has accepted its own responsibility for what happened to women and their children in mother and baby homes by firstly apologising and also setting up a payment scheme. 'A process was put in place to seek a financial contribution towards the cost of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme from religious bodies associated with mother and baby and county home institutions. 'While acknowledging the financial contribution by the Sisters of Bon Secours, I believe that much more could have been done by the other religious bodies concerned. 'I would encourage other religious bodies to reflect further on their willingness to make a meaningful contribution to the payment scheme and note that my department is available to engage with them on this matter at any stage.' The department had been seeking a total combined contribution of 267.52 million euro (£229 million) from the eight organisations. Asked about compelling the religious orders to make further contributions, the minister said the Attorney General has been tasked with looking at 'what avenues are open' to the Government going forward. She said: 'That is a step that may well be taken.'
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Only two religious bodies offer contributions to mother and baby redress scheme
Only two of eight religious bodies linked to mother and baby homes in Ireland have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme, a report has found. The Sisters of Bon Secours offered 12.97 million euro (about £11 million) – a sum deemed as meaningful and accepted by the Irish Government. The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul has proposed contributing a building to the scheme. That offer is to be considered by the Government. A third religious body – the Sisters of St John of God – declined to contribute to the scheme but offered a conditional donation of 75,000 euro (£64,000) to be used for a charitable purpose associated with mother and baby home survivors. Min. @NormaFoleyTD1 today published the report of the independent negotiator, Ms. Sheila Nunan Ms. Nunan engaged with eight religious bodies involved in the institutions over a period of some 20 months Full Press Release: — Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, Youth (@dcediy) April 8, 2025 The remaining five bodies – the Congregation of Lady of the Good Shepherd; the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy; the Legion of Mary; and the Church of Ireland – made no offer. The details were contained in a report compiled by Sheila Nunan, the independent negotiator appointed by the Government to engage with the organisations over financial redress. The negotiation was part of a bid to secure contributions from religious bodies towards the cost of the Government-established Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme. The scheme will cost more than 800 million euro (£680 million) and the Government had been seeking around 270 million (£231 million) in total from the religious bodies. A commission of investigation was set up in 2015 to examine homes run by the state and religious organisations where tens of thousands of unmarried Irish women were sent to have their babies. The commission found that almost 170,000 women and children passed through the institutions from 1922 until the last one closed in 1998. The investigation exposed the often harsh conditions and unforgiving regimes many women and children experienced in the institutions. Minister for Children Norma Foley expressed disappointment at the approach adopted by the majority of religious bodies to the redress scheme. 'The commission (of investigation) made significant findings in relation to the failings of the state and religious organisations who together ran mother and baby and county home institutions,' said Ms Foley. 'I know that people across Irish society, both religious and lay, have been distressed and appalled by the harsh conditions that women who became pregnant outside of marriage endured in these institutions. 'They had to face unfair, unwarranted and unbearable shame and stigma both inside the walls of the mother and baby homes and outside the walls from both state and society.' She added: 'The state has accepted its own responsibility for what happened to women and their children in mother and baby homes by firstly apologising and also setting up a payment scheme. 'A process was put in place to seek a financial contribution towards the cost of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme from religious bodies associated with mother and baby and county home institutions. 'While acknowledging the financial contribution by the Sisters of Bon Secours, I believe that much more could have been done by the other religious bodies concerned. 'I would encourage other religious bodies to reflect further on their willingness to make a meaningful contribution to the payment scheme and note that my department is available to engage with them on this matter at any stage.'
