Survivors need more than redress — they need care and respect too

THESE are the terrible words of a Bethany Home survivor to fellow survivor Derek Leinster, who has for many years led the campaign for redress.

There are only 20 known survivors of this all-purpose Protestant internment camp, in which some babies were born, some children were reared and some women offenders were held.

Most of the survivors bear emotional scars, many bear physical scars. Bethany was a kind of “Dying Rooms” facility for unwanted babies particularly between 1922 and 1949. Between 1935 and 1936, 40 babies died, an average of two a month from a baby population of 19.