Mother & Baby Homes: Giving testimony was 'helpful experience', says Philomena Lee

Philomena Lee. File picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Philomena Lee has said that giving her testimony to the Commission of Investigation report into the mother and baby homes was “a very helpful experience”.

The long-awaited report is due to be published later today.

It is the 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.

Philomena Lee was sent to the mother and baby home at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea after becoming pregnant.

She spent three months with her son, Anthony, before he was sent for adoption by a family in the US.

Her life story was later made into an Oscar-nominated film in 2013.

Ms Lee said that knowing the report is to be published today has brought her memories of her story back to the fore. 

She said that the idea Commission of Investigation was "very important" to her as she hoped it would give others the chance to look for their babies.

Speaking to the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ Radio 1 about giving her testimony to the commission, she said: “I learnt things that I had kind of pushed to the bottom of my mind. It was a really helpful experience for me.” 

Ms Lee said that today was about “giving other women the opportunity to be able to find out about the birth of their child”.

She said that women should also get access to records.

“Over the years, so many have tried and tried and tried to get records but they were never given to them.” 

Ms Lee also said she thinks there should be an apology for survivors. 

“Sometimes I think too there should have been an apology maybe from the Church” and the Taoiseach.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin is due to give an apology to survivors in the Dáil on Wednesday. 

“That would help a little bit I think," she said. "It would ease maybe some of the sadness we had to go through.” 

Speaking on Monday, Ms Lee called for the survivors to be paid compensation for their “unbearable suffering and loss”.

She said she has “waited decades” for the Mother and Baby Homes report.

She added that it is the moment when Ireland reveals how tens of thousands of unmarried mothers and beloved children, such as her son, were “torn asunder”.

This happened, she said, simply because they were unmarried at the moment their children were born.