‘Listening’ is not the same as ‘hearing’ survivors of mother and baby homes

Instead of the promised review of how the commission gathered and handled testimony, survivors are being asked — again — to give evidence to a department-led 'initiative' that has explicitly labelled and underplayed their testimony as 'personal stories', writes Conall Ó Fátharta

A pair of baby shoes with a massage hanging at the walls of the Mother and Baby home burial site in Tuam, Co Galway. Picture: Hany Marzouk

This Government is very fond of telling us that it is “listening” to survivors of mother and baby institutions. We are constantly told about how much it has done for them and will continue to do for them. 

Listening and hearing, of course, are very different things.