Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The survivors of the terrible conditions of Bethany Home were excluded from the residential institutions redress scheme on the basis that Bethany Home was a private home for which the State had no responsibility. However, we know the State had responsibility for Bethany Home as it was subject to State inspections under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. In some instances, the State made financial contributions to the cost of nursing out children, namely, the fostering out of children to temporary care. We know from Department of Local Government and Public Health inspector reports and media articles at the time just how barbaric the conditions were at Bethany Home. How can this Government say the State had no responsibility for Bethany Home?

In 1924, The Irish Times reported that a woman was charged with breaking her probation bond by refusing to remain in Bethany Home, to which she had been sent following the hearing of a series of charges against her for theft. In the same year the Irish Independent reported that a young woman was charged with obtaining food and lodging at the Royal Hotel in Bray by false pretences and was ordered to enter the Bethany Home for six months. In 1931, the Irish Independent reported that a woman pleaded guilty in the Central Criminal Court to the crime of concealment of birth and was bound to the peace for two years, with an undertaking that she should remain in a home. She was given to the care of Bethany Home. In January 1940, The Irish Times and Irish Independent published articles stating it was reported in the High Court that the Garda were in the habit of sending any homeless Protestant girl to Bethany Home.

The evidence of State involvement goes deeper. In 1939, then deputy chief medical officer for the Government Dr. Winslow Sterling Berry refuted public and health inspectorate concerns over standards of care at Bethany Home, with his jaundiced opinion that it waswell known that illegitimate children were delicate and suffered from starvation.He then forced the home to agree to cease admitting Roman Catholics. This highlights the sectarian and partisan nature of then Government policies.

The conditions at Bethany Home and the decision to send women and children there did not matter as long as Roman Catholics were not affected. Such was the brutal neglect in Bethany Home that 219 children died there between 1922 and 1949. These same children currently lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. I have attended their annual and moving remembrance ceremony. The State is, and has been, aware of the unmarked graves for a number of years yet they lie to this day hidden, their passage in life ignored and in death abandoned. Bethany Home in Rathgar was not simply a mother and baby home. Any attempt by Government to present it as such is deliberately misleading.

Despite a new Government inspection regime, child mortality in the 51 year history of the home was at its highest between 1935 and 1939, with 86 children interred in Mount Jerome during this time. More deaths, and additional non-fatal illnesses, took place in the first ten year period during which Bethany was subject to a State inspection regime than occurred in the previous ten years when 57 children died. Why did the numbers increase so substantially and under the State's watch?

In 1940, Bethany Home changed its admissions policy to exclude Catholics. It appears then Government Departments took no interest in the home after this point despite the State's statutory obligation and responsibility for it.

The Government should live up to its responsibility and add Bethany Home to the residential institutions redress scheme.

We were told for years that there was no information linking the State to the Magdalen laundries, but it was found somehow. Perhaps the Minister of State could tell us where it was found. I respectfully suggest that the overlooked or ignored information linking Bethany Home to the State can also be found. I call on the Minister of State to ponder that during tonight's debate. Clearly, there is information available. There was no information for the Magdalen laundries, but miraculously it was found. I am certain that the information on Bethany Home is sitting on someone's desk.

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