One has only to say Tuam babies and everyone reacts across the world, yet the politicians have known about what happened in these mother and baby homes for 44 years.

We, the undersigned, express serious reservations about the recently published draft terms of reference of the forthcoming southern Irish inquiry into mother and baby homes, and related matters.

Given that the Government has committed to consulting a wide range of opinion regarding the scope of the Commission of Investigation into mother-and-baby homes, I would like to issue a plea that the foremost issue to be decided should be which institutions are included.

Can one express with deep sorrow and regret what has happened in Ireland since it gained its independence.

Pope Francis has arrived in Jordan, kicking off his three-day trip to the Middle East.

WILL there be truth now, or will we go on hiding?

Louise O’Keeffe’s victory against the Irish government in the European Court of Human Rights is a victory for all institutionally abused children. Her bravery and determination deserves the highest commendation.

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.

IF we did not deprive them of life, we deprived them of their identity. That is the hard truth about our relationship with “illegitimate” children which Stephen Frears’s film Philomena makes us face.

In agreeing to implement one of the principal recommendations of Mr Justice Quirke’s Magdalene report that all lump sum payments to survivors of the Magdalene laundries be exempt from tax, Finance Minister Michael Noonan, in the course of Budget 2014, has made a virtue of doing what is right and moral.

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.

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.

The Taoiseach’s and the Minister for Justice’s lack of integrity, denying justice to the survivors of abuse in Bethany House, makes me despair that Ireland will ever change.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become the parents of a baby boy. He will never know poverty, will receive the best of care, attention and education, and live a life of inherited wealth and privilege. This wealth and privilege will be handed down to his successors.

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.

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.

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

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.

Minutes before this man had been talking about the sanctity of each human life. Now he was dismissing the unmarked graves of the babies who died needlessly at Bethany and the stories of the home’s 25 survivors by saying it wasn’t “technically” a Church of Ireland home.

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.

Diarmuid Martin is to be congratulated for his recent remarks that there is “no way” the abuse of thousands of children within the Irish church can be swept under the rug. Would that such moral courage and leadership was replicated by those who have responsibility to account for the treatment of children who were placed in Protestant institutions such as Bethany Dublin, and Westbank Greystones.

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.

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

For how much longer will the Minister for Justice and Defence Alan Shatter continue to obfuscate and filibuster on the issue of those who were incarcerated in the Protestant-run Bethany home?

The Government has today been accused of discriminating against Protestants by failing to pay compensation for mistreatment at a children's home.

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.

I AM reliably informed that the reason the Government will not allow former residents of the Protestant evangelical Bethany Home to apply for redress is because the coffers are bare.

I AM writing to you following the publication of Mr Teegan’s letter (January 17) and Ambassador Modai’s response (January 20).

I APPRECIATE Eric Conway’s reply to my criticism of his letter (December 23 and January 7).

ERIC CONWAY’S letter of December 17th asserts that an ill defined group he termed the “liberal/feminist commentariat” were, amongst other things, “quite sanguine/blase over Bethany House”.

Former residents of a Protestant children’s home called today for a permanent memorial at the unmarked graves of 40 forgotten babies.

Two victims of child abuse must have their cases addressed by the Residential Institutions Redress Board, it was claimed today.