Shameful treatment of Bethany Home survivors

The state of Ireland has to a duty of care to all citizens, regardless of religious background, and has laws in place with which to protect them. 

These laws were ignored when it came to giving protection to a small number of Protestant children when they were at their most vulnerable.

Ireland needs to be freed from 17 years of shame from treating the Bethany Home survivors as if they were not people.

Had the Irish state implemented its own 1908 Children’s Act and all of the new update attachments to the act that evolved over the decades such scandals as the Artane institution, the Bethany Home and Tuam Home (Galway) could not have happened.

However, the question of the Bethany Home has been treated uniquely differently. The government and their officials should not in this day and age simply be able to ignore a group of people who happened to be from a Protestant background. This is a sad legacy of the bitter past.

All government officials have a duty to treat all citizens the same, irrespective of what religion they may be.

D Linster

Chairperson of the Bethany Home Survivors

Rugby

Warwickshire

England