Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will raise the case of a person who spent five years of his early life in Nazareth House, Sligo. While his situation is unique to him, many others found themselves in the same circumstances so my ask is a general one. Nazareth House was an orphanage and care home but this person was not an orphan. Some three days after giving birth to him, his mother was forced to emigrate by her family, local clergy and, indeed, wider society, who did not want what was then called a "fallen woman" in their midst. A three-day-old motherless child was therefore put into care. This was back in the early fifties. A few months ago, this man became aware of the mother and baby institutions payment scheme and asked me to submit a parliamentary question asking whether Nazareth House could be included in it. The response I received was very clear. It stated: "Nazareth House was not an institution that provided ante and post-natal facilities and therefore not included in the scheme." Needless to say, this man is very disappointed. He spent five years in Nazareth House and while he emphasised that he himself was not abused and was indeed shown some kindness, he is well aware that many other boys suffered horrible abuse at that time.

That is not the end of his story, however. One day, when he was six years old, a priest and a couple came to see him. The next day, he was told to pack his little bag and was put into the back of a small van and brought to live with total strangers. His last memories of Nazareth House are of waving out the small windows at the back of the van to his friends and them waving back at him as he travelled down the avenue. His life from then on was hard slave labour on the farm he lived on and on neighbouring farms. Nobody ever came to see how he was doing.

I have read the legislation on the mother and baby homes and the negative response I received is accurate. However, now that the scheme is up and running and is recognised as a positive gesture by the State towards those who were grievously wronged in its care, will the Government consider extending the scheme to include all of those children who found themselves in institutions that were identical to mother and baby homes with the sole difference that their mothers did not give birth to them in those institutions and did not spend any time nursing them there afterwards? In many ways, this is, if possible, more cruel to all of those babies who were seen as a stain on our society. Their sense of loss, desolation and rejection never leaves them. It was just as grave for them as for anybody who spent time in a mother and baby institution. I know it is a big ask to extend this legislation to include institutions like Nazareth House but I hope the Tánaiste will consider it.

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