From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
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When the Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby institutions was launched in January, the Government committed that publication would not mark the end point of the State’s response to Mother and Baby institutions.
I pledged that we would address the needs and concerns of survivors, and that the State, in acknowledging its own responsibility and accountability, would seek to rebuild trust with those who suffered in the Mother and Baby institutions.
Today, I received Cabinet approval for an Action Plan for Mother and Baby Home Survivors, and for a Payment Scheme for survivors. The purpose of the Action Plan is to clearly lay out the next steps in the State’s response to the legacy of Mother and Baby Institutions.
I know that the time since publication of the Report has been difficult for survivors. I have met with many over the past year, and listened to their experiences. In developing this Action Plan, we have sought to address the varying needs which they have raised. This is with a view to recognising the State’s failings of the past, providing survivor-centred supports, offering opportunities for reconciliation and healing, and rebuilding trust.
At the centre of the Action Plan are proposals for the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme. I know that details of this scheme have been keenly awaited by survivors, and have taken longer than they or I would have wished, and I regret this delay.
This scheme is the result of extensive consultation between the Government and survivors, both in Ireland and abroad. I want to thank all of those who participated in the consultation.
What came through clearly in the consultation was a wish for kindness, and that the Scheme should be non-adversarial in order to avoid re-traumatising those who engage with it.
It is important to acknowledge, at the outset, that there is no payment or measure that can ever fully compensate or atone for the harm done by the Mother and Baby Institutions. The Payments Scheme and the Action Plan represent further measures in the State’s response to the legacy of those institutions, and its commitment to seek to rebuild the trust of survivors, which was so grievously broken.
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is a wide scheme which will benefit an estimated 34,000 survivors to the value of €800 million. It includes but also extends well beyond, the recommendations of the Commission of Investigation.
In terms of the number of estimated beneficiaries, it will be the largest scheme of its kind in the history of the State. It represents a significant milestone in the State’s acknowledgment of its past failures and of the needless suffering experienced by so many of its citizens.
The Scheme will include financial payments and an enhanced medical card. Mothers who were resident in one of the Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions for any length of time will be eligible to receive a financial payment. People who were resident as a child in a Mother and Baby Home or County Home Institution for a period of six months or more will also be eligible to receive a payment.
The payment is in recognition of time spent in one of the institutions, the harsh conditions, the emotional abuse and other forms of mistreatment, stigma and trauma experienced while resident there.
Women who undertook “commercial work” without pay, while resident in Tuam or one of the County Homes, for three months or more will also be eligible for a work-related payment.
In addition, people who spent more than six months in one of the institutions will be eligible to receive an enhanced medical card.
While it will take time to establish the Scheme, the necessary work has already begun in my Department. Given its significant scale, legislation will be required to establish the Scheme and this will be developed as a matter of priority. I want to assure survivors that every effort will be made to complete this necessary work and to open the Scheme for applications before the end of 2022.
When the Commission Report was published last January, I wrote to the congregations and organisations who had run the institutions, indicating I wished to meet with them regarding their contribution to any scheme for survivors, access to records they may have and their own apology. We made a decision that we would design and launch this scheme in advance of substantive engagement with the congregations. I have written to the congregations again in recent days, seeking a meeting with them in the next number of weeks, to begin the process of obtaining a substantial contribution from them.
Consultation with survivors over the past year has shown more clearly than ever that redress is a broad concept. There is no single measure that can respond to the legacy of Mother and Baby Institutions, and the breadth of response being undertaken is set out in the action plan.
Survivors want to see action on adoption information, on access to records, on memorialisation, on burials and, as the Action Plan sets out, we are acting on all these.
Through the proposed Birth Information and Tracing Bill, we are progressing legislation to give adopted people access to their birth certificates, as well as wider birth and early life information. We are currently awaiting the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children on the pre-legislative scrutiny of this vital, priority bill.
We will advance work on a National Memorial and Records Centre through consultation and cross-Government work. As part of the Action Plan published today, Government have appointed the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach to lead a Group on the development of the Memorial and Records Centre, and an allocation has been made for it in 2022 and 2023 to begin the work on planning this.
We have opened the Archive of the Commission of Investigation to ensure that survivors of Mother and Baby Institutions can access their records. As of 15 November, 296 individuals have received information from the Archive from my Department, through Subject Access Requests.
We are progressing legislation to allow for the exhumation and identification of the remains at Tuam, following the receipt of the pre-legislative scrutiny report on the Institutional Burials Bill.
We have and will continue to prioritise this work, both within my Department and across Government.
To conclude, in January of this year, the Taoiseach apologised on behalf of our State, for how the State failed the women and the children in these institutions. The measures outlined in the Action Plan today, with the Payment Scheme at its centre, is a part of the process of the State seeking to rebuild trust with these survivors. I would like to thank all those survivors who contributed to the consultation over the past few months and who have engaged with me directly. My pledge to them today is that we continue to engage, continue to talk, and continue to prioritise this important work.
Thank you.