Mother and baby home survivors invited to give views on redress scheme

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman wants former residents, their families, and representative groups to give their views on redress scheme. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Survivors of mother and baby homes are being invited to give their view on a proposed redress scheme.

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman has launched a consultation process on the establishment of an ex-gratia restorative recognition scheme which was one of the recommendations made in the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report.

Calls have already been made to give all former residents of mother and baby homes an enhanced medical card and not just those who spent six months or longer in an institution, as has been recommended.

Mothers who gave birth or people who were born in institutions that were not examined by the Commission of Investigation are also concerned they may not qualify for any redress scheme.

Mr O'Gorman said the findings of the consultation process, which is open until the end of the month, will play an "important role" in the development of the scheme. He wants former residents, their families, and representative groups to give their views.

Meanwhile, the Dáil has passed a Sinn Féin motion to allow adoptees access to their birth certs after the Government decided not to oppose it.

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— Kathleen Funchion SF (@Kathleensf1) March 9, 2021

Kathleen Funchion, who brought forward the Bill, said for too long adopted people had been denied that right.

However, Mr O'Gorman told the Dáil the opposition Bill would not help adoptees whose birth cert does not record a father’s name, where that name may be on other records.

"It will not help those whose births were illegally registered or those who were boarded out and whose identities may have been obscured. It will not help those who are seeking medical information about their birth families. And it does not address the need to provide for an effective and robust tracing service for all these categories of people."

He said he would bring forward the Heads of Bill for separate information and tracing legislation in the "next number of weeks".

"That will address the information gap that so many of those who were subjected to illegal birth registrations face. Access to your birth cert and access to your wider set of life information has to be absolutely central to the information and tracing legislation," he said.