Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

General Scheme of the Education (Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse) Bill 2023: Discussion

Ms Carmel McDonnell Byrne:

I might come in there. As part of the Bill, it is important we are inclusive of all survivors of abuse, whether they be Magdelen ladies or other survivors of institutional abuse such as those in mother and baby homes. They were all institutions and they were not pleasant places. Furthermore, we have to be mindful not to exclude people who did not apply for redress. We discovered after the redress closing date that a lot of survivors had thought the redress was just to do with sexual abuse and not emotional or physical abuse. They could not apply to Caranua, for example, for some of the excellent services that were being provided or to the Education Finance Board. It is important they all be included and we should not separate the individual groups, because we are all institutionalised and we have to be mindful of that all the time.

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