Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In my constituency of Meath West, in north-west Meath, is the Castlepollard mother and baby home. The Castlepollard home opened in 1935, but without a purpose-built maternity unit initially and with widespread overcrowding, it recorded an alarming rate of baby mortality in its first five years, with 60.2% of all infants dying. There were 4,559 babies born in Castlepollard between 1935 and 1971 and 247 of those infants died. Several women told the commission of investigation they witnessed nuns leaving the hospital with up to ten dead babies in shoeboxes and bringing them for burial on the grounds nearby.

I visited the site recently and it is very sad to think I was walking on the graves of hundreds of babies with no headstone or properly marked grave and only a rusty nail in the wall to remember them. It has been revealed there was a demand for a public inquiry and the closure of the mother and baby home in Castlepollard within the first ten years of its operations after soaring levels of baby deaths were regarded and allegations of the cruelty to and abuse of women were made.

Many of the women who had their babies delivered in Castlepollard spoke to the commission and said it was like living in a jail. They were told by senior nuns when they arrived that they had been really bad people, although many women told the commission they became pregnant after being raped. Some also said they signed adoption papers under duress. Most of the women who had their babies in Castlepollard were between 16 and 24 years old. They came from every county in the country.

The past few weeks have been very difficult for survivors and their families. I commend the bravery of the survivors and their families, who time and again have been let down by church, State and society. There is a private Facebook group for people affected by what happened in the Castlepollard mother and baby home, with more than 700 members. I commend the people involved and thank them for the work done in sharing photos and information and working together with survivors and families, helping them to obtain information.

As Deputy Funchion has stated, the State has failed these survivors. It did not listen or care. It turned a blind eye and it must now accept responsibility and come good for survivors.

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