Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend Sinn Féin for bringing this motion before the House. The party's Deputy Leader, Deputy McDonald, has called on the Government to provide resources for a small number of elderly men and women. The Government decided in July that it would not introduce a redress scheme, but it is willing to consider the question of a memorial and making records from the Bethany Home available to survivors. I understand that the Bethany survivors' group is not happy with this decision.

The Government's decision was based on a determination that the Bethany Home was a mother and baby home, but the survivors dispute this. The Bethany Home was closed in 1972, which was a different time. It was a home for so-called "fallen women" and was not as harsh a regime as that suffered by women in the Magdalen laundries. However, it was an Irish solution to an Irish problem, where women could hide their shame and deliver babies away from public view.

We have come through difficult times. Outside the gates of Leinster House today there were undocumented people from other countries seeking Irish citizenship. Ireland today is such a different place to when tens of thousands of men and women left here because they felt they were not being taken care of. Things are changing now.

Many of the young girls we are discussing this evening were adopted by childless Protestant couples in Northern Ireland and Britain. This remains a difficult situation for the survivors. The two rival churches, the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, were puritanical and judgmental. They did not dealt correctly with the poor, vulnerable and forgotten.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, met with the Bethany survivors in May 2011 and reviewed the papers on the home. Having taken all the circumstances into account, he found no basis to revisit the decision not to include the home within the redress scheme.

There is a concern that the former residents of the home have been forgotten about. When the redress scheme was introduced in 2002 I introduced a lot of men to the details involved. They were delighted to get such help and to know that their suffering was being recognised. At that time, the redress board was a vehicle, although it might not have been the best one. It may have cost a lot more money that the State was willing to pay out, but it was used nonetheless.

We can now examine different ways of addressing the problems, however. The Minister should examine the possibility of reaching some accommodation - although not through a redress board or scheme - that would satisfy the few remaining people who feel they have been left out. I hope the Government can look at providing something in that regard.

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