May I take this opportunity of drawing to the Taoiseach’s attention, that given the recent deluge of information which is emerging with reference to the Mother and Baby Home at Tuam, Co. Galway, it is becoming imperative that the Government finally takes action to face up to this shocking episode in the history of the State.

Abuse survivors of Bethany Home have welcomed a Government commitment to review any evidence of State responsibility in the negligent treatment of residents at the facility.

The lives of 222 children whose deaths at a Protestant mother and baby home were hidden for decades have been recognised with a special memorial.

As a monument is unveiled today to the 222 children who died at a Protestant children’s home and were buried in unmarked graves, survivors of the home have pledged to continue their fight for justice.

The financial contribution from the Department of Justice towards the erection of a memorial headstone at Mount Jerome Cemetery in remembrance of those babies and children who died while in the care of the Bethany Home in Dublin is to be welcomed (Derek Leinster, Remembering Bethany, March 1).

I want to pay tribute to Dublin City Council, for backing the Bethany Survivors’ Group, and for saying that the State should apologise to, and compensate, Bethany victims.

Listening to the Joe Duffy show last week I was reminded of the contempt the state and Catholic Church has for dumped children, and the very sad history of the victims.

The conferring on rugby player Brian O’Driscoll with the Freedom of the City of Dublin may be trendy and populist but I believe it is not in keeping with the spirit of this coveted honour.

THESE are the terrible words of a Bethany Home survivor to fellow survivor Derek Leinster, who has for many years led the campaign for redress.

Survivors of the Bethany Home have vowed to take their case to the UN following the Government’s decision not compensate its former residents.

It is hard to believe that the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, instructed his ministers to deal impartially and fairly with the issue of the Bethany Homes.

Protestant church leaders have historically looked ‘the other way’, when it came to dealing with the abuse and neglect children were subjected to in their institutions.

I was interested to read your article regarding the Bethany Home and Derek Leinster last month.

We wish to draw the Taoiseach’s attention to the inaccurate description used to define the Bethany Home, Dublin, when it is referred to as a ‘mother and baby home’ by Mr Kenny and some of his ministerial colleagues.

Derek Leinster's teenage mother gave birth to him in a Bethany home in 1941. He was raised brutally by the State. He has received no compensation and no apology, says Jonathan deBurca Butler.

Survivors of the Protestant-run Bethany Home have claimed it is a form of “discrimination” that they are excluded from justice or redress granted to victims of Catholic-run institutions.

VICTOR Stevenson looks and sounds like your average middle-aged, middle-class Northerner.

TDs will shortly meet with survivors, says Victoria White

Please allow me to respond to Janet Maxwell, Church of Ireland Head of Communications (Letters, Jan 10). She wrote to you on the Protestant evangelical Bethany Home (that closed in 1972), in response to a column by Victoria White and a subsequent Examiner editorial.

I wish to comment on Victoria White’s sobering article (Opinion, Jan 3) — “Justice needed for the survivors of and victims of Bethany House abuse”.

Unlike Derek Leinster, (letters, Dec 14), I am not a product of the Bethany Home but I nonetheless feel outraged at the treatment these children received and a sense of anger at my powerlessness.

The Archbishop Of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, attended a memorial service for Bishop KH Ting at Mochou Road Church in Nanjing, China, on Saturday, Dec 8.

The six contrasting lives in a new documentary are a study in how our backgrounds shape us, says Jonathan deBurca Butler

I was surprised to hear the journalist Bruce Arnold tell Marc Coleman on Newstalk a few days ago that I came ‘lately’ on the scene when he was writing his book about child abuse in Irish orphanages and industrial schools.

It is now 2012, Irish society has moved on a great deal, but sadly many institutions such as the Christian churches, some Government departments and their civil servants remain in their bunkers.

Reading your special report by Conor Ryan (Oct 1), it is amazing how all of the Irish media and reporters have covered the fact that the Catholic Church and its religious orders have mostly reneged on the deal agreed with Dr Michael Woods, the then Minister of Education, regarding compensation to victims of abuse suffered in Catholic institutions.

It is good to see that some reporters and media are starting ‘to get it’ in relation to the treatment of non-Catholics in Ireland today.

Derek Leinster (Letters, Jul 28) rightly expresses his disdain of those in government who remain equivocal on cherishing all the children of the nation equally.

In Joe Little’s RTE interview recently with Ruari Quinn and John Kelly of Irish SOCA, John Kelly confronted the minister, pointing out that he was wrong in claiming that the new €500,000 memorial for neglected and abused children represented all Irish abused children.

We welcome moves to include Westbank Orphanage, Greystones, in inquiries into institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.

SINN Féin leader Gerry Adams has written to Justice Minister Alan Shatter on behalf of a group of Protestant campaigners seeking to be compensated by the Government for abuse suffered in Government institutions.

THERE are reports that some leaders of Roman Catholic religious orders who represent institutions at which systematic abuse took place are reluctant to meet Ruairi Quinn.

A UN committee urged the Government to set up an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Magdalene Laundries and give redress to the women who suffered because of the institutions.

RECORDS held by adoption agency Pact must be put in the public domain so people can access their past, according to a man who spent many years in a Government-funded home but for whom the state has no records.

THE survivors of a Protestant home for unmarried mothers where more than 200 babies died have asked for the Government’s position on including it in the redress scheme.

AS a child survivor of the state neglect and abuse in a minority religious institution, I wish to reply to recent letters.

WAS Niall Meehan too kind to the media in his letter of January 14?

SURVIVORS of a state-endorsed Protestant institute for unmarried mothers where more than 200 babies died have called on the Government to compensate them.

Survivors of a Protestant institute for unmarried mothers where more than 200 babies died called today on the Taoiseach Brian Cowen to agree to compensate them.

FORMER residents of a Protestant home for children and “fallen women” have reiterated calls for their abuse to be recognised under the government’s Redress scheme.

VICTIMS of abuse in a number of residential institutions could miss out on compensation because the Government is insisting there is no evidence some facilities were State-controlled.