Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Bethany Home was established prior to the foundation of the State as a private organisation with a Protestant ethos to provide charitable assistance to women of all denominations on the margins of society. It closed in 1972. While it continued to provide a range of assistance, it evolved primarily into a mother and baby home. Women would usually go there a few months before the baby was due, give birth and leave a few months later without their child. Most of the children were fostered, and there was no legal provision for adoption until the 1950s.

Bethany Home was registered as a maternity home and was inspected under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. The inspection records indicate that in addition to being a maternity home, it was also a children's home for children up to three years of age. Infant mortality rates were very high at the home and children suffered from various conditions associated with poverty. It is not clear that conditions in Bethany Home were worse than elsewhere at the time, when a significant proportion of the population lived in conditions of extreme poverty. The number of children who died in the home is quite shocking. Up to the 1950s, poverty and diseases associated with poverty were widespread in Ireland. Children without family support could endure serious hardship. Infant mortality rates were approximately 20 times higher than they are now. The figures for those who were malnourished and subject to diseases and a lack of hygiene were even higher.

The Bethany survivors group is a group of individuals who were born in Bethany Home and who perceive they have disadvantages as a result. Some only spent a short time there, less than a month, and all would have left by the time they were five years old. They have very little first-hand recollection of conditions there. However, they are seeking redress not only for their time in Bethany Home but also for the time they lived with foster families until they were 18 years old. They sought inclusion in the residential institutions redress scheme, which is under the remit of the Minister for Education and Skills, but mother and baby homes generally and fostering were not included in that scheme. The Minister reassured the group that, contrary to some suggestions, the religious ethos of an institution was not a criterion for inclusion within the redress scheme.

While acknowledging the hurt and pain that remains with the survivors, having reviewed the papers on the home and having taken all the circumstances into account, the Minister regretted that he found no basis to revisit the 2010 government decision.

The Bethany survivors' group has made it clear it never regarded the Bethany Home as falling within the same category as the Magdalen laundries. It is not seeking to be included in any compensation scheme for the Magdalen laundry women.

In April 2013, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, met with the Bethany survivors' group at its request. The members of the group are continuing to seek a redress scheme to cover the entire childhood on the basis of their presence at Bethany. The position was explained to them and an offer was made to assist them with questions and records. Under the Data Protection Act a living person has a statutory right to access their personal data. The person who holds that data, the data controller, must provide access. This right is limited to their own information only. Information relating to a third party, such as a sibling or a deceased parent, is not covered. The Data Protection Act applies to such individuals but there is no legal obligation on them to preserve such records.

In April 1934, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, stated, "It is a well-known fact that in some of our largest cities there are maternity homes of a very poor class which are availed of largely by unmarried mothers. We are not at all satisfied that these homes are properly managed".

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