Mother and baby homes report to be published today
Children's shoes at Bessborough, Cork, a former mother and baby home. Picture: Larry Cummins
The long-awaited Commission of Investigation report into the mother and baby homes will be published on Tuesday.
The 3,000 page final report is a result of the judicial commission of investigation established in 2015 to investigate claims of the improper burial of infants, illegal adoption and cruelty to the women kept in the institutions and will include 1,000 pages of survivor testimony.
The records and practices of 14 mother and baby homes and four "county homes", a fraction of the entire number of these institutions that operated throughout the country, are included in the report, which was initially due in February 2018.
The report will be distributed to survivors on Tuesday morning, 400 of whom will meet virtually with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Minister of Children and Youth Affairs Roderic O'Gorman and Minister of State Anne Rabbitte for a full briefing in the afternoon.
A new webpage with information specifically for former residents of Mother and Baby Homes has been set up at: https://t.co/1Csk3S1RRI
— Roderic O’Gorman TD (@rodericogorman) January 10, 2021
Additional mental health supports provided by the HSE are also available to former residents https://t.co/rlIZLVD4mu
The full report will be published for the public at 3pm, with a Government press conference expected shortly after.
Survivor groups have already called for a redress scheme to be implemented upon publication of the report and that all survivors are given unfettered access to their personal information.
The Mother and Babies Collaborative Forum say “effective consultation with survivors regarding legislation and compensation” is necessary.
Survivor Philomena Lee, whose story was made into an Oscar-nominated film, has called for mother and baby homes survivors to be paid compensation for their “unbearable suffering and loss”.
“For the purposes of healing, it is essential the Irish State and various churches involved in the enslavement of unmarried mothers and the trading of their children, [should] apologise, without reservation.
“Irish people owe it to the memory of those mothers and children, who have died, without knowing the truth and to resolve that such atrocities will never be allowed to happen again.”
The Government has been criticised by survivors and opposition politicians after details from the report were leaked to a Sunday newspaper.
Excerpts from the report stated that 9,000 children had died in the institutions covered by the commission's terms of reference, with an infant mortality rate of one in seven, while 56,000 mothers passed through the homes until the final closure in 1998 and 57,000 children were born in them.
I am deeply angered to see sensitive details of the Commission Report leaked in a newspaper this morning. It is completely unacceptable that the people affected by the Report have found out elements of the Report in this way.
— Roderic O’Gorman TD (@rodericogorman) January 10, 2021
It also appears to have found that neither the Catholic Church nor the State forced women into the homes and that allegations that institutions were paid to arrange foreign adoptions are impossible to prove or disprove.
Institutional survivors say the article appeared to highlight “the more trivial aspects of how mothers and their children were treated ... focusing on mothers being forced to clean floors rather on the fact that their children were forcibly and illegally taken for the Irish adoption industry”.
“The leaked segments suggested a trivialisation of the worst traumas endured by the mothers and their children, that of being permanently separated from each other," adoptions campaigner Susan Lohan said.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has called for a full investigation into the leak and the person responsible "held to account".
Describing it as "disrespectful" to survivors, Mr Varadkar suggested the leak could only have come from a very small number of people within Government who were given the full document to read over Christmas.
Mr Varadkar added the Cabinet would discuss the establishment of an investigation into the leak when they meet on Tuesday morning.
Sinn Féin says "there is a role for gardaí" in finding the leak.
“I am absolutely appalled that elements of the Mother and Baby Homes report have been leaked to the media today, before survivors have seen the report. This was deeply insensitive and inappropriate"
— Sinn Féin (@sinnfeinireland) January 10, 2021
- Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion@Kathleensf1 https://t.co/wyiYzTKyQV pic.twitter.com/LojMZwgcnz
"This is a criminal offence, the nature of this and sensitivity and current experience of survivors need to be taken into account," Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion said.
"As you can imagine, survivors and their families have been devastated."
Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the leak as "regrettable" but added that "in the modern era various Government reports, aspects of them, get leaked and we certainly will be addressing that issue as well."
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