Department advertises for special advocate to support survivors of religious-run institutions

Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration Children Roderic O Gorman. File Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The Department of Children is set to launch a recruitment drive for a Special Advocate to support survivors of a number of the country's religious-run institutions.

In an email sent to survivors' groups on Thursday evening and seen by the Irish Examiner, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said the remit of the role will be to work with "those who spent time in all such institutions”.

The position has become available after the government agreed to fund it last November.

The email said, “The role of the Special Advocate will be to manage and facilitate consultation with survivors of Industrial Schools, Magdalen Laundries, Mother and Baby or County Home Institutions, Reformatory Schools and related institutions, to identify and discuss issues of concern to them.

“Through engaging with these groups to ascertain their views and priorities, the Special Advocate will support a strong and sustained voice for survivors in decisions on matters which affect them.

“This will ensure that survivors’ views are central to the delivery of the State’s response to the legacy of institutional abuse and trauma."

The Special Advocate's position which will go live tomorrow on publicjobs.ie and "represents a new holistic and inclusive approach". It acknowledges both "the shared and unique elements of survivors’ lived experience and the impact of those experiences on their needs today”, the minister said.

This is the second position advertised by the Department of Children in relation to Ireland's former religious-run institutions. In November a recruitment campaign for a Director to lead the excavation at the site of Tuam was advertised.

It followed the Government Order directing intervention at the site, where 796 children who died in the Tuam mother and baby home are believed to be buried.

The order was made under the Institutional Burials Act 2022 in October.

At the time, Mr O’Gorman said he had secured almost €7m for the intervention, beginning with the director to engage “a range of appropriately qualified experts to undertake the excavation, recovery and post-recovery analysis processes”.

The exaction of the site in Tuam is due to begin later in the year but no date has been confirmed.

Tonight's announcement comes following a furious backlash to the Redress Scheme for Mother and Baby homes survivors, which has seen the exclusion of boarded or fostered-out survivors and those who were in an institution for less than six months.

The €800m scheme is the largest in the state and is yet to be rolled out.