Reilly ‘confident’ over mother and baby home inquiry

Children’s minister James Reilly has said he is “confident” the planned mother and baby home inquiry will have the support of “those most centrally involved”.

Speaking to the select sub-committee on health and children yesterday, Mr Reilly said “good progress” was being made towards establishing the inquiry and that the terms of reference should be ready for publication before Christmas.

The children’s minister said the inter-departmental group on mother and baby homes had met again recently and has considered a number of specific issues which have been raised by a range of advocacy groups.

Dr Reilly said that while some of the issues raised were beyond the main focus of the inquiry, it would be as “inclusive as possible” in a “timely and cost-effective way”.

“I am confident we can establish an effective inquiry which has the support of those most centrally involved. My priority remains the establishment of a commission that can deliver on public expectations by providing a full account of what happened in these homes,” he said.

The children’s minister acknowledged the “potential scale of this investigation” and said he had already signalled to government that “significant additional resources” would be required by the commission and a range of departments.

A range of advocacy groups have met with Dr Reilly in recent weeks, with most describing the talks as positive, but warning that the inquiry needed to be as wide as possible to achieve any degree of support.

Co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance, Claire McGettrick said any inquiry which ignored the wider issues of illegal and forced adoptions and which did not include all of the institutions involved in such practices was “destined for failure”.

Paul Redmond, of the Coalition of Mother And Baby Home Survivors, said the inquiry must include all institutions and must address the criminality of illegal adoptions and associated practices.

The Bethany Survivors’ Campaign have expressed concern that while the Bethany Home will be included in the inquiry, it was clear to them the experiences of children — while in these institutions and after they left — would be excluded.

The department has refused to be drawn on whether or not the inquiry will investigate the scale of vaccine trials carried out on children in mother and baby homes.

This comes after the Irish Examiner revealed a previously unknown fifth trial was carried out on children here in the 1960s. The Department of Health has said it has “no information” on where, or in what institution, the trial took place, while Minister Reilly has not made contact with GlaxoSmithKline in relation to the revelations.