Historians seek new survivor-centred Mother and Baby Homes Commission 

Mother and Baby home survivor Shelia O'Byrne stands beside the Virgin Mary shrine at the Tuam Mother and Baby home mass burial site in August 2019. File picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Leading historians have backed survivors in rejecting the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report, which they say cannot stand.

The calls come following the admission of a commission member that the testimony of 550 survivors was discounted as the inquiry believed it did not meet the "robust legal standards of evidence" needed to be included in the main report.

Professor Mary Daly added that including these witness interviews in the commission's report would have take hundreds of hours of time to cross-reference.

In an open letter, a group of more than 30 leading historians have also dismissed the final report, claiming "best professional and ethical practice were not followed".

The group said Prof Daly's remarks revealed "what we had suspected"; that the commission "made no attempt to adopt a survivor-centred approach to historical research and that the history was written without consulting survivors' testimony".

They added that it is "troubling" that Prof Daly could not provide clarity on the lack of a methodology chapter in the final report, which ran to almost 3,000 pages.

The letter, which has been signed by academic staff from across Irish, UK and European universities, stated: "Charges of 'contaminated' memories were levied against survivors in the executive summary. Yesterday, Prof Daly appealed to us to 'let it stand'. We, as professional historians, cannot let it stand."

Seanad leader Regina Doherty also said the report now cannot be accepted and called on the children's minister to immediately commission a new investigation which is survivor-centred.

The Fine Gael senator has written to Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman calling on the Government to repudiate the report in the wake of "simply outrageous" remarks made by a member of the commission.

In the Dáil, Labour leader Alan Kelly and Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns also called for the findings of the commission report to be dismissed.

Calling on the Government to take action, Mr Kelly said: "We cannot accept this report. It is not fair. It is not fully truthful. This is not a historical record, it is not accurate."

Ms Cairns said it was "hard to understand" why Prof Daly had taken part in the Oxford University seminar but was unwilling to come before an Oireachtas committee to discuss her work.

"It's impossible to understand why Government has not rejected the commission's report," she said.

Maeve O'Rourke, director of the Human Rights Law Clinic at the Irish Centre for Human Rights.Picture: Tom Burke

Dr Maeve O'Rourke, director of the Human Rights Law Clinic at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, echoed the calls to have the report repudiated.

She said that Prof Daly’s appearance before the Oxford History group had offered some explanations of the methodology of the Commission.

“Prof Daly explained that the 550 who gave their testimony to the confidential committee of the Commission didn't influence the Commission's findings — because the testimony was not given under oath it couldn't be taken into consideration for the commission's findings.

“My view is that is an inaccurate reflection of the terms of reference of the statutory instrument setting of the Commission.”

Ms O'Rourke said the archive of the commission should be opened to allow those who gave evidence to have copies of what they said and access to their full personal data.

“We haven't seen practical movement from the Government on this yet. They have made promises for dedicated national archives to 20th century institutional trauma. They have promised people their personal data but we have not seen action on that yet," she said.