THE GOVERNMENT HAS abandoned plans to carry out a review of testimonies given by victims of Mother and Baby Homes, it has emerged. 

Last year, Minister Roderic O’Gorman said that he intended to appoint an international human rights expert to go through written evidence submitted to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

However, the Irish Examiner reported this morning that this idea has now been scrapped in favour of another initiative. 

A statement released this evening on behalf of O’Gorman’s department states that “the Minister believes that a new initiative to support survivors to tell their personal story, so that it can be formally recorded and accepted as part of the official record, provides the best opportunity for responding to the concerns of survivors in a meaningful way”.

Survivors of the religious homes had called for their testimonies to be independently examined after it emerged that the commission of investigation, which submitted its final report in 2020, had discounted their testimonies as they were not taken under oath. 

The The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) said it is currently “working on proposals for a new process to allow survivors of Mother and Baby and County Home institutions to come forward and tell their personal story, and to use their testimony to the Confidential Committee, so that it can be formally recorded and accepted as part of the official record”.

The statement added that these personal accounts will be housed in the National Centre for Research and Remembrance, which received Government approval on 29 March this year.

The National Centre for Research and Remembrance will be located on the site of the former Magdalen Laundry on Sean McDermott Street in Dublin 1 and will be a national memorial to honour equally all those who were resident in Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial Schools, Reformatories, Magdalen Laundries and related institutions.

Political Reaction

Despite the new plans, Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns said O’Gorman had “betrayed” the survivors of these institutions. 

“It is truly despicable that survivors have found out, via the media, that this review has been scrapped. The Minister failed to inform survivors it was not going ahead – even though, it appears the Minister made a decision early on to abandon it.”

She added her scepticism about the new plans. 

“According to a statement from the Department, there are instead vague plans to conduct some other “initiative to support survivors to tell their personal story, so that it can be formally recorded and accepted as part of the official record.

This statement is damning because it is a clear acceptance that survivors’ personal stories are not currently part of the State’s official record of this dark period of our history. They have been airbrushed out.  

“This is just the latest occasion that survivors of mother and baby homes have been betrayed and failed by the State. Given their shameful treatment, why would any survivor have any confidence in any “initiative” now proposed by the Minister?”