Bethany survivors seek state redress

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

Bethany Survivors Group said the state is as culpable for scores of deaths and abuse that went on in the home as it is for similar Catholic Church-run institutions and they should be included in the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme set up in 2002. In an open letter delivered to Government ministers yesterday, the group said officials ignored high infant mortality rates at the home in the 1930s and instead deflected complaints by turning the issue into a religious squabble. This was despite evidence that Maternity and Children’s Act inspectors warned the authorities about medical neglect in Bethany Home on several occasions following 1934 when the state passed legalisation which brought such institutions under its remit.

One of the survivors, Derek Leinster, said survivors of the institutions had only recently organised because of the extra difficulties they encountered due to the practice of the institutions in dispersing children across the British Isles and the US.