Mother and baby homes a 'dark, shameful chapter' in Irish society

Micheál Martin said he was distressed at the high mortality rate of infants and the clear evidence of statutory rape that was not reported to gardaí.

The Taoiseach says the Mother and Baby Homes report reflects a "dark, shameful chapter" in recent Irish society.

Micheál Martin said he was distressed at the high mortality rate of infants and the clear evidence of statutory rape that was not reported to gardaí.

The report has since been sent to the DPP.

"That history has had very real and lasting consequences," he said.

"It holds up a mirror to aspects of our past, which are painful and difficult. It is often hard to comprehend.

"The testimony of survivors, set up by the commission in their confidential report mates often harrowing reading.

"It opens a window onto the deeply misogynistic culture in Ireland over several decades, with serious and systematic discrimination against women, especially those who gave birth outside marriage.

"It presents all of Irish society with profound questions. The regime described in the report, wasn't imposed on us by any foreign power. We did this to ourselves, as a society.

We treated women exceptionally badly. We treated children exceptionally badly. We had a completely warped attitude to sexuality and intimacy and young mothers and their sons and daughters were forced to pay the price for that dysfunction.

"As a society, we embrace judgmentalism, moral certainty, a perverse religious morality and control, which was so damaging."

The Taoiseach said he was struck by the absence of basic kindness and that all of society was complicit, and that the report gives an insight into the shame and stigma that was visited upon these women and their children through no fault of their own.

"This system was supported by contributed to and condoned by the institutions of the State and the churches," he said.

In so many of the testaments, priests, nuns, and doctors, loomed large, young mothers and their children, ended up in mother and baby homes and county homes because of this extraordinary and oppressive societal pressure.

"As the commission says plainly, and simply, they should not have been there."

Mr Martin said it was "partisan" to question if he would apologise on behalf of his party Fianna Fáil, who were in government for the vast majority of the time these homes operated.

"This was a widespread societal acceptance. County councils met on the grounds of some county homes," he said.

The Government said it has assured survivors' groups it is focused on moving forward to implement a "comprehensive response" to all of the findings.

As part of this response, a formal apology will go ahead tomorrow, despite pleas from some survivors to delay the statement until they can digest the full 3,000 page report.

Minister for Children, Roderic O'Gorman said  the report "is a harrowing work, but it makes clear is that institutions were places of callousness brutality and shame, and the report paints a portrait of a stifling and oppressive the kind of deeply misogynistic culture in Ireland, prior to the 1970s, and that this culture was ruthlessly enforced by the prevailing attitudes in the church, within the State, within wider society, and that this directly and repeatedly, led to women being deprived of choice and agency in their own affairs through coercion, through shame, and through family obligation."

Mr O'Gorman added that the stigma has had appalling consequences for many of the children that were born to those mothers, particularly during the 1940s in the 1950s.

It's really it is difficult to conceive of the scale of the tragedy and the heartbreak behind that figure of 9000 children and babies who died. 

"The State failed time again, and for decades, to protect some of its most vulnerable citizens, failed to uphold some of their most fundamental rights," he said.

"We have to be honest in acknowledging the State's responsibility in overseeing these institutions."

Mr O'Gorman paid tribute to those who "refused to be silenced by the system, which has wronged them".

This is an extraordinary painful moment for so many of those for whom this isn't history. It is an actual living memory.

Minister for State Anne Rabbitte said she was "as a woman, daughter and a mother ... I am battling deep anger" to point fingers on a "brutal, gruesome document".

"High on the list of accountability are the religious organisations, who cultivated a culture of indignity, then the families, and as a mother, I wonder what sort of societal pressure I would have to be under to turn my back on my children?"

When it was put to Mr O'Gorman that survivors' groups had begun to reject the findings, he noted that the document should be "read as a whole".

The commission's report has provided Government with a chapter of recommendations, which they are accepting.

The Government has provided a response published alongside the report today.

The action plan contains 22 individual actions groups.

Central information and tracing legislation which departments will be advancing this year, alongside working to put in place mechanisms for survivors and adoptees can see personal information via GDPR.

Once the archive of Mother and Baby Homes is transferred to the Department of Children, a package of health benefits, including a form of enhanced medical card for everyone who spent more than six months in a Mother and Baby home, alongside counselling services, both short term and long term, is being put in place.

Legislation to provide for the exhumation of the sites and for DNA identification of the bodies and the remains will be passed through the Dáil this year.

The Government restated its commitment to progress the national memorial and record centre, and public access to original state files, relevant to the research of the commission of investigation.