No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children. We gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was the nuns’ care. We gave them up maybe to spare them the savagery of gossip, the wink and the elbow language of delight in which the holier than thous were particularly fluent.
TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY used strong and emotive words in the Dáil today when discussing the Tuam mother and baby home revelations.
Today, Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone agreed to carry out a “small scoping exercise” to assess if it is possible to expand the existing terms of reference to include other homes into the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.
Speaking in response to a question from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin in the Dáil today, Kenny said, “we gave them up because of our perverse, in fact, morbid relationship with what is called respectability”.
The Taoiseach was addressing the Dáil following last week’s revelations that substantial amounts of human remains were discovered on the site of a former mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway.
Since the discovery, a number of survivors have called for the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes to be expanded.
In consultation with the commission, Zappone is due to announce details of the scoping exercise after the St Patrick’s Day weekend.
Remains found in Tuam
Last Friday, Zappone confirmed a significant number of human remains – of children aged up to two and three years – had been found at the site of the former mother and baby home, run by the Bon Secours sisters, in Tuam.
Two test excavations of the Galway site discovered “significant quantities of human remains in a structure which appears to be “related to the treatment or containment of sewerage.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie in Tuam on Friday, local historian Catherine Corless, who brought the issue to light in 2014, said she now feels vindicated.
In the last few days, survivors of mother and baby homes have been speaking out about their experiences.
Patrick Joseph Haverty told this publication that he wants a formal apology from the State and the Bon Secours religious order.
As it stands, the commission chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy, is tasked with examining 14 mother and baby homes around the country, in addition to four county homes.
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said it is vital that other mother and baby homes are brought under the remit of the investigation.
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