Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also rise to support this motion. I am very sympathetic partly because of the precedents and partly because it involves members of a minority who feel that there has been some discrimination against them on this issue. The State has available to it a redress scheme to make the necessary compensation which would be fairly appropriate to use in this case. If it does not qualify, I see no reason why redress should not be given to the Bethany Home survivors because of the small amounts of money involved.

My limited knowledge of this has found that there seems to be consensus about Bethany Home having been a home for cruelty and neglect and for the State also having been aware of it. Regardless of whether the State is responsible or not, it should put its hands up and say that those who have suffered in Bethany Home are entitled to some sort of apology. The very fact that 219 unmarked graves were discovered in 2010 should alert us to the startling nature of what was happening in those homes. The very fact that so many children died so young and that there was such a high level of mortality should also alert us to that. There is absolutely overwhelming evidence that they died from diseases, including malnutrition, from which they would not have died had they not been neglected in this way.

I believe the State has a responsibility even if it is for the very simple matter that they lived in the State and the State did not look after them in the way a state should have done - in the same way as everyone else. I am sure the Minister has read the story told by Derek Leinster. I do not know whether it is typical but I suspect it is. It involves his mother going to Bethany Home four months before he was born and leaving him there four months after he was born. According to him, he was then delivered to a new home in an extraordinarily unhealthy condition where he said he had scabs on his head and all sorts of other ailments and was lucky to survive. If that is a typical case, it is very cruel and wrong not to compensate, recognise and apologise.

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