Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the issue of the mother and baby homes. I understand that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, brought a memo to Cabinet today. As has been articulated, the wrongs of these mother and baby homes are accepted by everyone in this House. I believe we all recognise that many of the victims and survivors are elderly and in ill health. In 2016, the commission said in its second interim report that children who had been resident at the Bethany Home and at other county and mother and baby homes should be eligible for the residential institutions redress scheme. This, however, has not happened. Derek Leinster has described the refusal to extend redress to those survivors until the commission concludes its final report, which will now be 2020, as a delay and deny until they die approach.

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