Truth body to record homes abuses

The Government wants to establish a South African-style truth commission to publicly record the wide-scale abuse in mother and baby homes.

It now looks certain that the scope of the commission will be widened to include all homes across the country, but Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone is anxious that there is justice for all victims and their families as the scale of the scandal unfolds.

Ms Zappone is now considering a separate and much wider “transitional justice” system — similar to what was introduced after apartheid in South Africa — to allow victims be heard and possibly pave the way for some form of reparation.

She will meet advocates, historians, and scholars in the coming days about how to begin such a process, which she said would “put survivors and victims at the heart of the process”.

The Dáil heard details of the shocking number of deaths in these institutions which Ms Zappone said many knew about.

She highlighted the 474 so-called unclaimed infant remains transferred from mother and baby homes to medical schools in Irish universities between 1940 and 1965. Ms Zappone suggested a transitional justice system would “achieve not only individual justice, but a wider societal transition from more repressive times”.

Transitional justice has been used in many countries in the wake of dictatorships, genocide, and other atrocities, including in post-apartheid South Africa where a televised truth commission allowed victims and perpetrators come forward to give testimony.

Ms Zappone said we could learn from international best practice and cited the Museums of Memory in Argentina and Chile. She committed to “do justice not solely through law, but through speaking and listening and through believing with our eyes, our ears what our compatriots tell us”.

Separately, religious orders have been criticised for contributing only 13% of the amount it has cost to operate the child abuse inquiry and redress scheme and to support survivors of residential abuse.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has said 14 properties worth around €20m that were due to be transferred by congregations under the 2002 Indemnity Agreement had not yet been passed on, and that of the €225.6m that had been offered by the religious since the publication of the Ryan Report in 2009, just €83.5m had been paid over.

The chairman of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee, Sean Fleming, described the situation as “inexcusable”.

“It is astonishing and inexcusable that six years after the publication of the Ryan report, only €85m of the €226m offer has been received by the State.”

Education Minister Richard Bruton also strongly criticised the Church for failing to meet the 50/50 target between the State and the congregations.

The inquiry, which resulted in the Ryan Report, cost an estimated €82m, versus an initial estimate of €2.5m. The projected cost for the redress scheme was €250m, but it ended up costing an estimated €1.25bn.

The report shows the average settlement secured by the small percentage of survivors who brought cases to court was typically almost double that of the average redress award, at €132,535.

In its recommendations the C&AG said the Department of Education should “actively pursue” the outstanding balance of approximately €21m linked to properties that have yet to be handed over under the terms of the 2002 indemnity deal and that arrangements for transfer of those properties “should be concluded as soon as practicable”.

The Irish Examiner has also learnt that the Department of Education is now considering a permanent exhibition to remember residential institution abuse victims, instead of the memorial recommended in the 2009 Ryan Report.