Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann:accepts that Bethany Home, Rathgar (1922 – 1972) was a maternity home, a children’s home 1959 and a place of detention for women on remand or convicted of crimes referred by the courts;

further accepts that Bethany Home was subject to inspection under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934;

recognises the State’s failure to vindicate the rights of sick and dying Bethany children after receiving reports of neglect by the Deputy Chief Medical Advisor;

acknowledges that 219 Bethany Home children died between 1922 and 1949, and these same children currently lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin;

further acknowledges Department of Local Government and Public Health inspector and media reports detailing the very serious neglect of Bethany children in the home and of children sent to nurse mothers;

considers most serious the exclusion of the surviving men and women of Bethany Home from the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, which provided for fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in other institutions subject to State regulation or inspection; and

commits to a Dáil debate by mid-February 2014 as a first step in the delivery of a State apology, redress mechanism and access to personal records for the small number of surviving men and women of Bethany Home.

Bethany was not just a mother and baby home and the Government's attempt to rewrite history does not stand up to scrutiny. Bethany was a Protestant maternity home and a children's home from which children - young, vulnerable citizens of this State – were fostered in and out of neglectful homes. It was also a place of detention for women on remand or convicted of crimes. Evidence in the public domain and records held by Departments tell us this, yet the Minister of State will table an amendment to the Sinn Féin motion that is beyond a distortion of the truth. She has underpinned her amendment with an argument set out in the same vein as that used by the State's deputy chief medical adviser in the 1930s. He was of the view that children born outside of marriage were prone to starvation and, judging by the amendment before us, it appears the Government shares this view.

It is outrageous that the Minister of State would suggest that the State had no duty of care to children in the institutions inspected by it. It is scandalous that the Government would attempt to disregard the significant mortality rate in Bethany, the deaths of young children and babies in a State-inspected institution, in such a cavalier fashion.

The children were poor, as the Minister of State's amendment points out. Of that there is no doubt. However, the 219 souls who lie in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery did not die of poverty. The children buried there were two years of age and under. They were babies. The small number of survivors of Bethany Home tell a tale of poverty, but that is simply the backdrop to their stories of neglect, cruelty and suffering. We will hear some survivor testimony this evening.

The State was aware of these children's existence and the neglect and cruelty meted out to them. The State on which these defenceless children relied to vindicate their rights and for protection turned a blind eye to their suffering. Today, the Minister of State and her Government is dismissing them once again. That is an unimaginably cruel thing to do. It is also dishonest. It is a lie to say that Bethany Home was a private institution in which the State had no interest. This is a very familiar lie. It was repeated time out of number as the State sought to dodge its responsibilities and distance itself from the Magdalen laundries. The State inspected Bethany Home under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. Minutes of the Bethany Home management committee refer to the first inspection, which happened in 1936. Between 1935 and 1944, 132 Bethany children died, averaging 14 children every year. A State inspection report dated 30 November 1938 noted a previous inspection in November 1937 and stated that, of the 57 children in the home since the last inspection, 14 had died. Those children died as the State authorities looked on.

In 1939, the State's Deputy Chief Medical Officer visited Bethany and attributed the ill health of children - rickets, scalding and purulent conjunctivitis - in the home to the fact that they were "illegitimate" and, therefore, "delicate" and prone to starvation. Are the Minister of State and the Government supporting that view in 2013?

In 1945, Bethany Home was designated as a place of detention for Protestant women on the nomination of the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin at the invitation of the then Minister for Justice, Gerald Boland of Fianna Fáil. As with the Magdalen laundries, women were sent to Bethany by the courts for a variety of crimes, including petty crime, concealment of birth and infanticide. Bethany was also a place for detaining prisoners on remand. The last media report of such a case was as late as 1965.

The reality is the State had a multitude of reasons for oversight of the institution.

However, it chose to turn its back on these children and their mothers, just as it did to the children who were battered and abused in industrial schools and to the enslaved women and girls of the Magdalen laundries. From 1949 the State made direct payments to Bethany Home in the form of the maternity and child welfare grant. The State's fingerprints were all over this institution, as the Minister of State well knows.

Children were temporarily fostered from Bethany Home, and reports held in the then Department of Local Government and by public health inspectors graphically set out the often barbaric neglect of these children. The Minister of State is aware of this too. In fact, the State actively sought to minimise instances of horrific neglect and to protect the perpetrators. That is the evidence. When reviewing one inspector's draft report regarding the neglect of a Bethany child in foster care, the State's deputy chief medical adviser crossed out the word "dying" and replaced it with the term "low". The same original report includes a request that the dispensary doctor "order" the child's removal to the county home, but again the medical adviser for the State instructs this to be omitted. In addition, another section in the draft is crossed out, with an instruction to omit a piece which reads:

I was informed by the sergeant of the Civic Guard [the Garda] that they had received unfavourable reports of foster mother before, and that another child from Bethany Home died within one month of being sent to her. I consider that the authorities of Bethany Home were culpable to send child in the condition of health out to nurse.

The Bethany survivors have been consistently frustrated in their efforts to gain recognition of their suffering and the failure of the State to protect them. The Fianna Fáil-led Government excluded them from the State redress scheme. Many, including Labour Party and Fine Gael Deputies, were outraged by this decision at the time. In 2010, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, was so incensed at the mistreatment of survivors that she described the continued refusal of the Fianna Fáil Government to include former residents of Bethany Home under the provisions of the residential institutions redress scheme as "a running sore". Deputy Lynch went on to add: "As a result, the survivors have been deprived of the opportunity of having their case heard and of obtaining some justice and redress for the abuse they suffered as young, innocent and vulnerable children."

The Government cannot credibly discuss children's rights or survivors' rights today if it refuses even to acknowledge the State's failure to protect children in the past. The State failed the children of Bethany Home. The Government knows and understands this. Both parties made the same case when they sat on this side of the House. Mother and baby homes were included in the residential institutions redress scheme. Bethany Home was subject to State inspections, as were the foster mothers who cared for the Bethany children when they were fostered. Indeed, the State paid for those children's care in some instances. Barbaric neglect was recorded by the State, even if it was doctored and amended. The State was aware of very high numbers of children dying in the home. The courts detained women in Bethany.

Bethany survivors were excluded from the residential institutions redress scheme on a false pretext. As I said, mother and baby homes were added to that scheme. The involvement of the State in respect of these institutions is proven and documented and cannot be contested. These are the facts, and no amount of mealy-mouthed words will change them.

I and the survivors were rather stunned last summer when the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, sent their missive to the survivors via their solicitor. They dismissed out of hand any hope or prospect of a fair hearing, recognition, justice, an apology or redress for those people. I thought that was a new low, until today when I saw the amendment that has been tabled by the Government to the fair and fact-based motion tabled by my party on behalf of the survivors. There is no recognition in it of the suffering the Minister of State knows these children and babies endured. There is not even a proper recognition of the reality of the unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery. Will the Minister of State explain why that is the case? In the face of overwhelming evidence of State involvement, State inspection and State subvention and the overwhelming evidence of suffering not only from survivor testimony but also from the records in official State documents, why does the Government continue to frustrate the legitimate claims of these survivors for simple truth and justice?

I do not know if the Minister of State can explain that this evening, but I suspect she cannot. As people who took such a keen interest in this case and who told survivors they would stand by them in their journey for justice, I cannot understand how the Minister of State and the Government can so callously turn their backs on them now. The decision in the summer was devastating for the survivors. They had hoped that a Government that had finally come out on the right side with regard to the Magdalen laundries would be able to be honest and fair and to give justice to this small group of survivors. The amendment puts paid to those hopes. I do not know how the Minister of State, with a shred of decency or honesty, can defend this amendment-----

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Deputy would know a lot about decency.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State knows that, which is why she is reacting in this manner. She knows what should and must be done. She knows these people deserve recognition, that their case should be set out to the gaze of the public, that they are due an apology and that they should never have been excluded from State redress. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, knows that, and no words on behalf of a deeply dishonest Government, for whom she speaks, will change it.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I know about honesty too.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I look forward to her remarks.

Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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Patrick Anderson-McQuoid was a survivor of Bethany Home. His mother entered the home in March 1947. He gave testimony in February 2013 which reflects and illustrates the heartbreaking story of so many mothers and children who passed through these homes and the anguish and uncertainty the experience caused them. These people very much deserve redress and justice. I wish to read his testimony into the record.

My birth mother came from County Wicklow and entered Bethany Home in March 1947; she was five months pregnant with me. She went into the Rotunda Hospital and gave birth to me on 24 July 1947. Both of us returned to live in Bethany Home. My mother stayed in Bethany with me until November (4 months) when she left me. Two weeks later I was removed from Bethany Home taken to a nurse mother in Roscrea in County Tipperary.

My first memory came from that period of time. I was one year old. The strength of the sun’s rays were broken by the flinching movement of tree branches within a rectangular dark-edged frame. The scene was broken by the image of a person’s head wearing a round big hat.

This small piece of memory relates to more information that I will explain later.

In April 1950, I was removed from my nurse mother in County Tipperary by a Church of Ireland vicar to the Fold and Boley Home in Monkstown, Dublin, run by the ICM. I was examined by a doctor. It was noted that: "This child came to us in very poor condition with cold blue extremities, continuous anaemia and obvious rickets of the head. He was not talking much and would not play with other children. His heart was irregular. Cheeks and lips blue."

At this time, the Bethany Home had a duty of care for me but they placed me with a nurse mother that failed to care for me, at all, ending with me being very ill indeed, as I described.

While at the Boley Home, my birth mother signed a form with the ICM giving away her rights to me and not to interfere with any arrangements made by the ICM or communicate with me. Also, she was asked to pay £6 per month for the next five months. In January 1951, ICM transferred me to the Elliot Home, part of the Smiley’s Homes.

In May 1951, I was taken from Smiley’s Home to Northern Ireland. This transfer was arranged by the ICM and was illegal. It transpires that when I was removed to Northern Ireland I was given to my nurse mother’s sister. I was adopted in Northern Ireland in 1952, to a farmer and his wife, both aged 51 years of age. I was just over three years of age and can remember it in detail. I was traumatised as a result of the emotional, physical and physiological experiences that up to that young age I went through.

I will move on, but in passing I wish to point out that my time with my adopted parent was a situational trauma which built up over time due to being brought up in a very strict religious routine tied in with Victorian values. I do not wish to go into the details of that today.

When I was 13 years of age my adopted mother died. I did the cooking, cleaning and also farm work. I bunked off school, hid during the day in a tree hut on the farm. At the age of 15 years I got a part time job, saved £12 and got on the Belfast to Liverpool ferry and on to London, sleeping rough until I got my life on track.

During the 70s and 80s I tried to get my records here in Ireland and Northern Ireland where I found it was not legal to do so. I never gave up hope in finding my identity and history.

I got involved in the visual arts as an artist and other cultural work, and lived in Cornwall. I moved to Cork City where I worked with the Irish Ballet Company for two years as an assistant stage manager doing lighting and sound. I left the ballet company and opened my own gallery in Paul Street, Cork. Later, I spent over one year working on opening an arts centre for Cork. This I achieved in 1978 when I was the artistic director and founder of the Triskel Art Centre. Almost 35 years later it is going well.

After leaving Triskel and Cork, I lived in London working in a major gallery. In the mid-1980s I had a serious illness and found out that I had a hole in my heart and later was refused life insurance cover of any kind. Due to my previous details of my removal from Ireland I never had any medical records.

I came back to Ireland in 1989 and settled in County Leitrim where I still live. In 1980, the law changed in Northern Ireland and I found my birth mother's name. I also contacted PACT but was told they had no records of me. I traced my birth mother after over a year of searching. She had changed her name by getting married and moving from County Wicklow. Through a third party I made contact but she refused to meet me. I had a breakdown and was hospitalised and had counselling after a suicide attempt.

A while later I received a letter from the PACT with a copy of a birth cert. It was of another child that my mother had four years after my own birth. Seven years later my half-brother contacted by chance my third-party contact in Wicklow, trying to find his mother. He was told she was alive and that I was his brother and was searching for him. He lived in Utah, USA, and was removed from Ireland to the USA when he was three months old. I went to Utah in early 1999 and we met. Also, we contacted our mother via the Church of Ireland but, sadly, yet again she refused to have any contact with us.

On my return and two weeks later in Leitrim I learned that my birth mother had passed away. I went to the funeral on my own with two yellow roses from myself and my half-brother, my identity unknown to those there.

Over a year later, after contact with my mother’s family, two half-sisters and a half-brother arranged by a third party, it broke down and now there is no contact.

In 2003, I suffered a breakdown and spent a year and a half getting counselling every week. I survived that and later in 2005 I met my nurse mother’s daughter who confirmed my first memory for me of the journey to Belfast in 1951 as it was her who took me on the train. She also told me in more detail of myself being in trauma at the time and also of another child named Joseph that died.

At last in 2010, I traced my records and found out what I have just read to you all here today. The pain of that search is still with me. I joined together the memories with factual truth.

So two years ago at the age of 63 years old, I could introduce myself to myself and understand what had happened on the way. I was removed from my place of birth, but returned to leave something good and long-lasting for the benefit of Ireland, meaning the Triskel Arts Centre.

As a member of Bethany Survivors, I seek in simple terms that the records are removed from PACT and placed in open access; a memorial at the Mount Jerome Cemetery for the 219 small infant children from the Bethany Home that are buried in an unmarked mass grave; and, most of all, justice from our Government, the Church of Ireland, and redress in some form.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue and to do my small part in representing the wishes of a group of people who have been forgotten for far too long. First, l pay tribute to Niall Meehan and all the others involved in Bethany Home survivors group who have kept on the pressure over the years. I pay tribute to my colleague, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, and her officials who have helped to highlight this case of gross injustice.

l am disappointed by the Government amendment, on which we will be forced to vote tomorrow. The amendment seeks to deny any State responsibility for the abuse perpetrated in Bethany Home despite clear evidence that the Government of the day was aware of and did little or nothing to stop it. It cannot be stated loud enough that Bethany Home was not simply a mother and baby home. Any effort by Government to portray it as such is deeply dishonest.

The Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934 referred to in the Government amendment was enacted to protect children. Speaking in the Houses in 1934, Dr. Ward, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health said:

[I]t is a well-known fact that in some of our large cities there are maternity homes of a very poor class which are availed of largely by unmarried mothers. We are not at all satisfied that those homes are properly managed. As a matter of fact, we have information to the contrary in the report published in 1927 on the relief of the sick and destitute poor. The Commission drew attention to different evils which they traced to the poor-class maternity homes, or to the not too scrupulous management of those homes, particularly the connivance of the management at the secret disposal of children to unsuitable foster parents, and the consequent high death rate amongst the children.

In January 1940 The Irish Timesand Irish Independentpublished reports from the High Court to the effect that the civic guards, the Garda, were in the habit of sending any homeless Protestant girl to Bethany Home. It is untrue for any Minister of State to come to the House and paint a picture of private institutions where women simply went to have their babies. We know it and the Minister of State knows it as well. I call on the Minister of State to admit the facts clearly shown in the reports and records I have quoted from. This is not the sin of this Government. No Minister before the House is responsible for the State's failure to protect these women and children. However, the Government does have the opportunity to help them to begin a healing process long denied. If the Government denies these people that salve of recognition then it begins to bear some responsibility since it would be capitulating with the State in protecting itself from the truth of its crimes and failures. Such a move would be especially wrong if it were motivated by a desire to avoid having to pay any redress.

Justice delayed is justice denied. For far too long the Government has feared that the gates will open. It is high time that we, as a society, and the Government admitted that a terrible injustice was done and that the State had a direct involvement in the tragedies that befell the women and children. They were victims of an archaic system long since universally condemned for destroying the lives of so many of our citizens. The Minister of State knows that Bethany Home victims should have been included in the redress scheme. I rest my case.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“notes that Bethany Home:

— evolved from two private charities, the Dublin Midnight Mission and Female Refuge and the Dublin Prison Gate Mission, which predate the existence of the State; and that in 1934 it moved from Blackhall Place to Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin and remained there until it ceased operation in 1972;

— operated as a charitable trust and carried out a range of functions, but in 1940 the High Court found that the majority of cases it dealt with were maternity cases;

— was registered as a maternity home and was inspected under the Maternity Homes Act 1934; and

— was not an enclosed institution;

acknowledges that Bethany Home operated at a time when poverty was widespread, infant mortality rates were high and that life for those children without family support could involve serious hardship;

recognises that those who were, as children, in homes and institutions have a right to access their personal records; and

commends the efforts being made to preserve and make more accessible relevant records.”

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Having read the Government amendment, I find what the Minister of State has said difficult to take.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I acknowledge the hardships faced by those born in Bethany Home. There is no doubt they faced hardships. Up to the 1950s, poverty and the diseases associated with poverty were widespread in Ireland. Infant mortality rates were high. Children were not cherished the way they are today and were often seen as a burden or a form of cheap labour. There was no provision for legal adoption. Life was tough for many, not least if a child was without the support of a family.

Many of those who were born in Bethany Home only spent a short time there. I acknowledge clearly the contribution of Deputy McLellan in this regard. It bears out what we found in our analysis. Sometimes those born in the home were there less than a month before being fostered out. Others spent longer there but the indications are that infants could not be kept there once they reached the age of four or five years.

Bethany Home closed down in 1972. As a result of the lapse of time there are few if any comprehensive first-hand accounts of the home. However, in its day it must have been a well-known charity particularly to the readers of The Irish Times, which carried notices of its annual meetings and gift days.

I have been able to establish that it appears some time before 1922 the Dublin Midnight Mission and Female Refuge, founded in 1898 or earlier, merged with another charity, the Dublin Prison Gate Mission, which was established in 1876 by a Quaker woman to assist women recently released from prison. By 1922 the merged charity was known as the Bethany Home and was based in Blackhall Place in Dublin, not in Rathgar as put forward incorrectly in the Sinn Féin motion. It was 1934 before Bethany Home moved into premises in Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin. It remained there until it ceased operation in 1972 and the home was put up for sale. The indications are that it was run as a charitable trust established by trust deed. It would also appear that the trustees were predominantly people from a Protestant background but not necessarily with any formal link to a particular denomination. It was run by a management committee on a voluntary basis.

A court affidavit, dated 20 January 1940, by an honorary secretary of the Bethany Home stated that it was well known to the public that all the members of the managing committee were and always had been Protestants. However, the affidavit confirmed that up to 1939 the home accepted all women including Catholic clients. There was no element of sectarianism. All those resident were, however, expected to participate in evening prayers of a Protestant ethos. In 1945 the Department of Justice was informed that all Protestant sects were represented on the committee of management in Bethany Home. In 1938 the home had six full-time staff including a nurse and midwife.

The role of Bethany Home reflected the aspirations of the founding charities and was mainly for distressed women from the least well off sections of society. It was not limited to a single purpose. However, the High Court found in a civil case in 1940, referring to Bethany Home's annual report, that 73 out of 79 cases helped were maternity, that is, fully 90% of its work. Department of Health records confirm that in the 1930s, Bethany Home was registered as a maternity home and was inspected under the Maternity Homes Act 1934. Records for 1952 show that after the three main maternity hospitals, Bethany Home was the largest registered maternity home in Dublin by bed size. The 1938 inspection records indicate that in addition to being a maternity home it was also a children's home for those up to three years. It is reasonable to presume that for most of its operation in this State it was primarily a mother-and-baby home.

Other work the home engaged in included taking in unmarried mothers and their babies. In line with the purpose of one of the two original charities, women before the criminal courts were on occasion to reside in Bethany Home for a specific period rather than go to prison and it is likely that the home assisted women on release from prison.

The only formal link with the criminal justice system was the fact that Bethany Home was registered as a place of detention or remand centre under section 108 of the Children Act 1908 on 17 April 1945 for offending female non-Catholic children and young persons under 17 years of age. For the purposes of Part V of the Children Act 1908, committals to Bethany Home were either court-ordered remands, which would have been for some days while awaiting a court date, or court-ordered detentions, following conviction for short periods not exceeding one month.

There have been no complaints as to the criminal justice work of the Bethany Home.

The number of children who died at Bethany Home is quite shocking and it is a point, together with the unmarked grave in Mount Jerome graveyard, that strikes one about the history attached to all this. It is both sad and quite distressing. Unfortunately, poverty and disease were commonplace in Ireland up to the 1950s and this was reflected in infant mortality rates. Infant mortality rates in the 1940s were at a level that is hard to comprehend today, that is, approximately 20 times higher than at present and this figure applies across the entire population. For those who were malnourished and subject to disease and a lack of hygiene, the figures could have been even higher.

It was public knowledge at the time that there was a serious problem with standards in maternity homes. During the Seanad debate on the Registration of Maternity Homes Bill that took place on 11 April 1934, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health stated:

it is a well-known fact that in some of our large cities there are maternity homes of a very poor class which are availed of largely by unmarried mothers. We are not at all satisfied that those homes are properly managed. As a matter of fact, we have information to the contrary in the report published in 1927 on the relief of the sick and destitute poor. The Commission drew attention to different evils which they traced to the poor-class maternity homes, or to the not too scrupulous management of those homes, particularly the connivance of the management at the secret disposal of children to unsuitable foster parents, and the consequent high death rate amongst the children.

Neither the number of infant deaths in Bethany nor the conditions there were a secret. It was not an enclosed institution and members of the public had access to the home on a regular basis. Newspaper archives indicate there were sales of work, Bethany gift days and an annual public general meeting. All deaths would have been recorded and included in the inspection reports. Death certificates would have been required and a coroner's inquest could have been held, where appropriate. There does not appear to be any question of the infant mortality rate being hidden and this is known from the evidence from Mount Jerome.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Cant.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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There were public allegations of children being neglected in Bethany in 1939 and 1940. These were investigated and rejected by the health authorities. There were suggestions that some of the complaints were motivated by sectarian concerns but it is not possible to make any determination from this distance as to whether the investigation was adequate. It is very difficult to put these matters into context 70 years later. It was public knowledge at the time and is a matter of historical fact that infant mortality rates were high and poverty, ill health and child neglect widespread. I am simply not in a position to assert that the infant mortality rate was higher in Bethany than other comparable homes or that the standard of care was good or bad by the standards of the day. In 1952, there were considerably more than 100 non-hospital maternity homes. There also were other Protestant institutions very similar to Bethany Home, such as the Magdalen Asylum for Penitent Females in Lower Leeson Street. Indeed when Bethany Home closed down, some of its funding passed on to the Leeson Street institution. The members of the Bethany Survivors Group have made it clear they are primarily seeking redress for what happened to them after they left Bethany Home and went to foster parents. I can understand this in terms of lifelong trauma. Fostering was common practice at the time and undoubtedly there were abuses. I certainly can sympathise with those who had to endure hardship, neglect and poverty in their foster families. They were not given a good start in life. However, those from Bethany Home were not alone in their experiences and the State cannot accept liability for everything that happened in families when it had no direct involvement.

The inclusion of the Bethany Home within the redress scheme was considered by the Department of Education and Science in 2004 but a decision was made that the home could not be included as the Department of Health and Children was unable to locate any evidence of a public body having a regulatory or inspection function. Subsequently, in May 2007, the Department of Health and Children advised that evidence of a regulatory or inspection function had been located and Bethany Home's inclusion in the redress scheme could be considered. However, as the information located identified that the home operated as a mother and baby home, it was not regarded as eligible to be considered for inclusion in the scheme. Following the publication of the Ryan report in May 2009, there was a range of requests and calls for the redress scheme to be extended. One such request was for the Bethany Home to be considered on the basis that it operated as a children's home as well as a mother and baby home. The then Government decided against extending the redress scheme. This decision meant the exclusion of a number of institutions, which could have been considered for inclusion. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, met the Bethany Home Survivors Group in May 2011. The Minister reassured the group that contrary to some suggestions, the religious ethos of an institution was not a criterion for inclusion within the redress scheme. While acknowledging the hurt and pain that remains with the survivors, having reviewed the papers on the home and having taken all the circumstances into account, the Minister regretted that he found no basis to revisit the 2010 Government decision and this remains the position. The Bethany Survivors Group has made it clear that its members never regarded Bethany Home as falling within the same category as the Magdalen laundries. They do not seek to be included in any compensation scheme for Magdalen women. The Department of Health has no plans to introduce a scheme of redress for those who were in mother and baby homes.

Under the Data Protection Acts, a living person has a statutory right of access to their personal data. The person who holds that data, the data controller, must provide access. This right is limited to his or her own information only. Information relating to a third party, a person who was deceased, such as a parent or a relative such as a sibling, is not covered. One could not ask about the existence of siblings as being personal information, which many people would consider to be personal to them. The sibling has his or her individual right to privacy and he or she is the only one who can access his or her personal information. If I understand correctly, the main problem is a question of preservation of records, particularly of institutions which have long since closed and where the records may be held by private individuals. The Data Protection Acts apply to such individuals but there is no legal obligation on them to preserve such records. The Departments of Children and Youth Affairs and Health and the Health Service Executive may all have a role in addressing this issue and following our meeting with the Bethany group, I undertook to pursue this matter. I am exploring which State body would be in the best position to hold and preserve such records. I have also undertaken to write to persons or bodies identified as having possession or control of relevant records relating to the Bethany Home to explore how the preservation of and access to such records could be facilitated.

In conclusion, I am disappointed that Sinn Féin has not bothered to check its basic facts. It would do nothing to enhance the reputation of this House to pass motions containing factual inaccuracies.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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There is no factual inaccuracy in our motion.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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However, I would be more concerned at rushing into passing judgment on those who ran Bethany Home without hearing their side of the story.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Shame on the Minister of State.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Deputy McDonald would know a lot about shame.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Shame on the Minister of State. Who wrote this? Was it the Minister, Deputy Shatter?

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State, without interruption.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Constitution demands we respect the rules of natural justice. While Sinn Féin may not accept this, people are entitled to a fair hearing and an opportunity to protect their good name. This is something at which Sinn Féin would be good.

As I stated earlier, the infant mortality rate in Bethany Home was very high by current standards and children there did suffer from diseases associated with poverty and neglect. However, it seems to have been accepted at the time that Bethany Home was run by people with charitable motives.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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As were the Magdalen laundries. Does the Minister of State remember that?

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Did Bethany Home improve the lot of those who passed through its doors or did it make their lives worse by the standards that existed at the time? I am not here to defend those who ran Bethany Home - it cannot have been a pleasant experience - but I am certainly not in a position to condemn them out of hand in the way proposed by Sinn Féin. Having listened-----

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is a disgraceful statement.

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Deputy McDonald would know a lot about disgrace. She has the old rhetoric of shame and disgrace, which she probably learned from those shouting it at her.

Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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The publication of Senator Martin McAleese's seminal report on the Magdalen laundries brought to the fore the grim chronicle of abuse that scarred this country in the past. The recognition of the truth and steps towards meaningful redress have marked a path towards bringing a measure of justice for those women. A dark chapter in the State's history is finally closing. The victims of the Bethany Home have not had such a sense of closure or the succour of justice. Today's motion is a welcome move towards addressing that gaping chasm in the lives of survivors.

There is something poignant and deeply tragic about the searing image of 40 unmarked graves in Mount Jerome graveyard. They are the physical testimony to the institutional system for so called fallen women, an attitude that crisscrossed between the Catholic and Protestant religions. The insensitivity and lack of compassion in the system belies its religious foundation. The dearth of human kindness that seems to have defined these institutions despite their ostensible religious motivation is one of the most disturbing aspects of the institutions. For the children of Bethany Home their suffering demands redress.

It is important to acknowledge the Ireland from which these residential homes emerged. The dire poverty of early 20th century Ireland ranked among the worst in the Western world. The infant mortality rate soared above that of Calcutta while swathes of the population dwelled in derelict tenement slums. Out of these desperate circumstances residential institutions emerged to fill the widening vacuum caused when families were unable or unwilling to care for children. The State had an obligation to effectively supervise these homes but failed to do so. The grim chronicle of child mortality at the home exposes a dark place in the Bethany Home which operated from 1922 to 1972, ultimately settling in Rathgar. It underlines the kind of atmosphere in which women and their newborns lived. A total of 219 Bethany graves in Mount Jerome were discovered for the period 1922 to 1949. Records reveal that 54 of the children had died from convulsions, 41 from heart failure and 26 from marasmus, a form of malnutrition. As many as 86 deaths, or well over one third of Bethany's 219 child deaths in the 28 years between 1922 and 1949, occurred in one five-year period, from 1935 to 1939. Almost two thirds, or 132 children, died in the ten-year period from 1935 to 1944. There is something deeply disturbing about the numbers, even in the context of the standards of the time.

The Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 specified named institutions and section 4 of the Act allowed for the inclusion in the scheme of certain categories of institution by ministerial order. The legislation provided the Minister could broaden the remit of the original Act to encompass the Bethany Home survivors. The work uncovered by the Bethany survivors organisation demands at least a debate on the issue and a meaningful engagement by the current Administration. The previous Government decided against including Bethany Home in a limited definition of mother and baby homes. Subsequent evidence and action on Magdalen laundries deserves a meaningful discussion in the Oireachtas. The State's obligations under the Maternity Act 1934 demand to be fully addressed.

Survivors are of the view that the exclusion of Bethany Home represents sectarian discrimination against the Protestant minority. It is difficult to see how churches of all religious shades that have failed so acutely in their responsibilities should be treated differently in compensating for those failings. Suffering knew no boundary in religious belief.

In contrast, the actions taken to address the Magdalen laundries have, after some prevarication, been far stronger. The report of Senator Martin McAleese was initiated in June 2011 and charts the grim details of the experiences of at least 10,000, but up to 12,000, women in the ten Magdalen laundries operated by four religious orders across Ireland from 1922 to 1996. The inhumane conditions of work, the de facto slave labour status of the women and the gross unfairness of the indefinite incarceration in the laundries mark a grave breach of the human rights and dignity of the women involved. The evidence definitively reveals that the Irish State colluded in the operation of the laundries as the justice system sent women into them and State agencies such as hospitals employed the services of these laundries.

The courts system sent women into the laundries. Some 26% of entries were by way of the State system while the Garda Síochána returned runaways from the institutions. The system was evidently not a voluntary mechanism. The State failed the women by failing to implement effective supervision of the laundries, by failing to uphold its own health and safety standards and by failing to provide for the education and social welfare rights of the women.

The story of Bethany Home is far smaller in scale and size but no less profound for the survivors, of whom there are 25 to 30. A small but determined band of people are committed to securing justice for what happened in that place. As a country we have taken meaningful efforts to confront the bleak reality of the past on this island. The grave failures of responsibility by the State and the heinous crimes committed by rogue agents of institutions that commanded public respect have been systematically uncovered and steps taken to address them. The previously hidden and unspoken histories have justifiably emerged from the void of silence. As legislators we are obliged to right old wrongs and move beyond them to ensure such travesties of justice never occur again. The saga of Bethany Home is another such challenge.

The Government amendment sweeps around the issue but it hits upon the importance of revealing the truth behind what happened in Bethany Home. Full access to the file is an important step towards capturing, understanding and addressing the legacy of Bethany Home. Full access to the personal records of each individual is an intrinsic right for each survivor and should be immediately addressed.

Tonight's motion is a welcome discussion on a sensitive and demanding topic. This small group of survivors who have grappled their entire lives with the grim legacy of the Bethany Home deserve our attention. More than that, they are entitled to our support. I hope the Government judges the motion on its merits so that we can take action in providing a meaningful solution for the survivors.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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The Bethany Home is part of that dark time in our history along with what happened in the Magdalen laundries and in institutions such as the industrial schools. As the motion points out, the Bethany Home in Rathgar was a maternity home for women of the Protestant faith, a children's home, and a place of detention for women on remand or convicted of crimes. We know also that it was inspected and as a result of those inspections there were reports showing very serious neglect of Bethany Home children.

The 219 Bethany Home children who died and are currently buried in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery is particularly sad because we Irish are very respectful when it comes to death and funerals. We look after the graves of our loved ones and we mark their anniversaries. Those 219 children do not have that acknowledgement of their lives and their identities and the call for funding towards a memorial for them in Mount Jerome cemetery is one that could be easily addressed. It also reminds me of the work being done in regard to the cillíní that are in so many parts of the country, including quite a number in the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's county. There is a sadness about people who were buried in secret because they do not have their identify. They were just left in unmarked graves.

The high fatality rate among the children is attributed to the physical abuse and neglect they experienced in the home. That was borne out by the Government's chief medical adviser, Dr. Berry, as far back as 1939 when on three visits he commented on the ill-health of the children in the home. The irony, as many people have pointed out, is that this home was set up to deal with a social problem, namely, women caught up in a judicial system who were pregnant outside marriage. It was set up with good intentions. They were possibly well-meaning people, members of the Church of Ireland, but it is obvious there was very little equality or respect for the women in dealing with them as human beings and, consequently, all the maltreatment followed.

The call for an inquiry from Dr. Jackson, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, in February was positive. He supported calls for redress, stating he was open to exploring a church contribution to the cost.

Another point that is brought up concerns the records. The promised adoption Bill will ensure that all adoption records are held by a single State agency. The records of the Bethany Home are held by the Protestant Adoption Service, PAS, along with records of the other Church of Ireland social services, but other questions arise for people who were adopted in trying to locate their records. The length of time people are looking for those records is ridiculous.

It was very difficult for the survivors of the Bethany Home when they saw what was happening with the survivors of the Magdalen laundries. They could not understand why they were not included in scheme. Along with others, we have received e-mails on that in which they outline they believe they have been totally neglected. They have been excluded from both the residential institutions redress scheme and the Magdalen redress scheme, despite initial indications that the Bethany Home would be considered for inclusion in the latter scheme. I hope there may be room to make provision in that regard.

It took years to achieve a redress process for the Magdalen ladies. A good deal of progress has been made but there are still problems for the ladies in terms of the inadequacies of the report and in terms of their health care. Those issues must be addressed. An important development was the apology from the Taoiseach and this country for what had happened, a recognition of their dignity and respect for their rights. It was a long drawn-out battle. Some of the women have died in the meantime and their issues have not been addressed. We do not want the same long wait for access to provisions such as health services, as experienced by the Magdalen survivors. Many of the surviving Bethany Home children who are now adults suffer from the maltreatment they received as children in care.

I draw attention to another campaign highlighting the abuse of mixed race Irish in institutional care. A number of those people were in the Dáil recently to discuss those issues and one of the ladies stated, "The key point is that if you were mixed race back in the '50s and '60s you were 99 per cent sure of being put in an institution." She further stated:

I was not held because of my colour. When I was held the carers wore gloves because they felt contamination.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I ask Deputy O'Sullivan to adjourn the debate.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Is there no one from Fine Gael or Labour contributing?

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Time was made available for everybody so-----

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Who did not take their time?

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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We gained time during the debate. It is as simple as that.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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We did not gain that much time.