Irish Examiner view: Welcome appointment of negotiator on mother and baby homes redress

Religious orders, their leaders, and lay Catholic bodies have effectively been shamed into having the negotiations at all 

Former ICTU president Sheila Nunan has been appointed to broker a financial settlement with recalcitrant religious orders. File picture: Nick Bradshaw

As Clodagh Finn so rightly pointed out in this newspaper yesterday, the appointment of an expert negotiator to discuss financial redress with religious organisations that are plainly disingenuous about their responsibilities in the many mother and baby home scandals is a welcome one.

The fact that the negotiator — former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Sheila Nunan — has had to be brought in to try to broker a financial settlement with recalcitrant religious orders, their leaders, and lay Catholic bodies tells us everything we need to know about their reluctance to accept culpability.

And when you consider that the Church bodies have effectively been shamed into having the negotiations at all, it makes their position distinctly un-Christian.

We wish Ms Nunan every success in her endeavours. Her appointment not only highlights the many failures to address the trauma inflicted on so many women and children, but also the failure of religious orders and their congregations either to stop it or, subsequently, to take responsibility for it.