Government has to finally do something courageous — act
THE question for the Government now is not whether it will offer a State apology to the women and children born in Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes — but when.
As the terms of reference for the upcoming mother-and-baby home inquiry are prepared, it’s clear that a number of things can not now be denied.
It is a matter of public record that the State was fully aware of conditions in the institutions and was concerned enough in 1945 that a government minister intervened to order that women no longer be sent to one of the largest — Bessborough in Cork.
The latest revelations about infant deaths at Bessborough reveal a snapshot of how such institutions operated and the extent to which the State used the Church to provide a social service on its behalf.
The Cork City and County archive material proves a number of things beyond doubt, namely:
-The State was aware of the concerns about conditions and infant mortality rates in mother-and-baby homes;
-A government minister ordered in 1945 that women no longer be sent to one of the largest — Bessborough in Cork;
-The State sought permission to admit expectant mothers to Bessborough from other institutions such as county homes and from England;
-The State paid for women to stay in Bessborough through the South Cork Board of Public Assistance.
So the State inspected licensed and inspected mother-and-baby homes; sought permission to admit women there; paid for some women to remain there; and by 1945 was ordering that no more women should be sent to one of the largest.
While the archives threw up the two reports which record the shocking infant mortality rate of 68% in Bessborough in the early 1940s and the poor training and lack of qualifications of the nuns and nurses working there, other material sheds light on how the mother-and-baby home system operated in tandem with local authorities.
A June 1934 letter from the Department of Local Government and Public Health to the secretary of the CBPA clearly reveals a government department seeking an “admission ticket” for an 18-year-old named woman, originally from Cork but now “in trouble” in England, to be admitted to Bessborough.
The letter outlines how the woman ended up in England and became pregnant, along with the name of the father.
Asked whether the woman had any objection to her parish priest being consulted on the matter, her fear of her parents finding out about her pregnancy is the overriding impulse affecting all her decisions about coming home. It states: “Does not wish him to know as he might tell her parents and she absolutely refuses to tell them of her trouble... [She] consents to go to a Home in Ireland provided her parents are not informed.”
In 1939, minutes of a meeting of the CBPA reveal that it agreed to admit another named expectant mother to Bessborough following a representation by an inspector from the Department of Local Government and Public Health, “having ascertained that the woman was a bona fide resident of the South Cork Area and a care and a case for which the Board were obliged to take responsibility for maintenance”.
It is worth noting that, at the time that the department was seeking these admissions, its own annual reports were recording an infant mortality rate at Bessborough of around 39% (1933-34) and 47% (1939).
Even a cursory glance through the minutes of the CPBA reveal admissions to Bessborough from the county homes and district homes on a regular basis.
One entry from July 1939 shows that the local authority was so concerned at the money it was paying the nuns at Bessborough to care for the women it was responsible for, it seemed to have been willing to entertain a deal on rates in return for a drop in the fee.
“Arising on a question raised by the Lord Mayor regarding what he considered the high rate of payment made to Bessboro Home [sic] in respect of the Mothers and children there for which the Board is responsible for the cost, it was decided to refer the matter for consideration of the House Committee at the next meeting and the Secretary to submit previous correspondence with the authorities there when the question of securing reduced rates was considered.”
SO, where to now for the Government?
Unlike the Magdalene laundries, State’s involvement in mother-and-baby homes was far more transparent. It was established and accepted practice for the State to be directly involved in referring women to both County Homes and mother-and-baby homes like Bessborough. It licensed, inspected, and in some cases funded such institutions from 1922.
The mother-and-baby home inquiry offers this Government a unique opportunity to show some courage and vision and finally deal with Ireland’s shameful treatment of unmarried women and their now adult children — some of whom were exported abroad.
Numbering tens of thousands, these people have been ignored for years and, worse, denied basic rights in law offered to every other citizen of this country.
This is a story that goes beyond the deaths of infants, horrific as that is. It reaches to county homes, Magdalene laundries, vaccine and medical trials, and the looming shadow of decades of forced and illegal adoptions.
The issue of adoption, at the heart of this scandal, is one which successive governments studiously avoided for years.
Despite numerous ministers being lobbied by the victims of illegal adoption and adoption groups providing dossiers of evidence of illegality, nothing has been done to offer adopted people and natural mothers the most basic information and tracing rights.
Such legal rights have been granted in other countries for decades — including the North since 1987.
Despite promising new tracing and information legislation being promised by every government since 1997, the current Government has yet to produce a heads of bill.
No full-scale audit of the tens of thousands of adoption files held by the State has ever been undertaken. This is despite the fact the HSE has admitted that some files contain evidence of illegal birth registrations and that certain adoption agencies have admitted they facilitated illegal adoptions.
As recently as February of this year, then children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald confirmed no audit of the files was planned.
The Adoption Authority itself has now finally admitted that thousands of people “must have been” illegally adopted, with many taken out of the country. Yet it has also never carried out a full audit of the files held by accredited adoption agencies.
WHY is the Government so recalcitrant? Campaigners point to an obvious reason: Opening up adoption records reveals a scandal that is more conveniently left in private hands or in boxes at Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.
Yet, following the initial revelations of the Tuam babies scandal, the signs were good. Charlie Flanagan, having been recently appointed children’s minister, spoke passionately about the need for as wide-ranging an inquiry as possible, with the terms of reference to be announced promptly.
Since then, the noises from Kildare Street are not so positive. Mr Flanagan was moved to Foreign Affairs. There was a delay in announcing the terms of reference, coinciding with the interdepartmental report on mother-and-baby homes.
Campaigners pointed to the weakness of the report, coupled with the delay in the terms of reference, as a sign of the Government wishing to limit the scope of the inquiry as much as possible.
County homes and Magdalene laundries have been excluded despite being inextricably linked to the mother-and-baby home system that operated here. Infant homes such as Temple Hill and Stamullen also seem destined to be left outside the scope of the investigation.
We shall have to wait and see what the final terms of reference are, but if the Government limits this inquiry, either it or a future government will be facing another one — most likely into county homes.
Throughout the last century, as many as 70% of unmarried mothers institutionalised by the State found their way into county homes. Ignoring them now will be a travesty.
Writing in this newspaper in June, Queens University historian Seán Lucey made this exact point while telling the Government that all the information it needs is out there. “Any inquiry that concentrates on just mother-and-baby homes runs the risk of being piecemeal and the likelihood of future controversies,” wrote Dr Lucey. “The archives of local authorities, which reveal much about the process of how women were committed, maintained, and financed in these homes, are scattered across the country in local repositories in county archives and libraries... Importantly, the scope of such an inquiry has to look beyond mother-and-baby homes.”
This is an opportunity for the Government to do something courageous and historic. It should grasp it with both hands.
