Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

For anybody to say that these events are surprising would be untrue. The scandals of the mother and baby homes have long been an open secret. The horrors of Tuam were investigated in 1944, when children were found to be emaciated, pot-bellied and uncared for, and there were a far greater number of them than there should have been. The records from that home were handed over to Galway City Council in 1961 and the grave was found in 1971. Now in 2014 people are throwing up their hands and saying they knew nothing about this. Irish society knew full well about the scandals in the mother and baby homes where women were exploited for unpaid labour and half starved. Everybody knew that one went in there to have a baby but never left with one. The child either died in there or was forcibly and often illegally adopted in those institutions. That is why the State has failed to acknowledge what went on in them.

Last year I gave the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs’ predecessor a study and report commissioned by Adoption Rights Now on similar scandals in Sean Ross Abbey, Castlepollard and Bessborough mother and baby homes. That organisation did clinical research which showed that almost 50% of the children there died. Hundreds died and were buried in angels plots to which people have no access. The State knew about these things.

The remedy we need is that the denial must stop. There must be a full inquiry into the treatment of women, the forcible removal of their children and an opening of the books to assist those people in getting the information and records they desire. The plots must be handed over and access given to parents and family members. Ideas such as justice, accountability and compensation have to be dealt with or we have learnt nothing from the past.

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