Written answers

Wednesday, 25 January 2006

Department of Health and Children

Residential Institutions Redress Scheme

8:00 pm

Photo of Joe HigginsJoe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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Question 248: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if the State had a statutory function that would allow it to inspect the Morning Star mother and baby unit, as opposed to whether documentation detailing actual inspections of that institution can be located. [40308/05]

Photo of Brian Lenihan JnrBrian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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There are no records held by the Department concerning a "Morning Star mother and baby unit". I understand there have been a number of references in parliamentary questions and the media to that unit concerning the case of one individual in relation to the Residential Institutions Redress Act. It is my understanding that the entity concerned is correctly titled as the "Regina Coeli Hostel" in North Brunswick Street, Dublin. Furthermore, the Department does not hold any files which suggest that there was a mother and baby unit within the Regina Coeli Hostel.

A search of relevant files retrieved from the National Archives does not provide any clear evidence of what statutory function this Department had in relation to the inspection of the Regina Coeli Hostel or whether the hostel met the definition of a maternity home under the terms of the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. These files are held by the National Archive and as such are available to the public as a matter of course. Should the Deputy require further information from these files, he may wish to contact the records management unit of this Department which will facilitate him in retrieving the files.

The Deputy may wish to note that the Department of Health and Children advised the Department of Education that an inspection of files provided evidence of inspection or inspections of the Regina Coeli Hostel conducted on behalf of this Department. The Department of Health and Children confirmed this to the Department of Education and Science in April 2005 and asked that consideration be given to the inclusion of the Regina Coeli Hostel under section 4 of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. The inclusion of institutions on the Schedule of the Act is a matter for the Department of Education and Science.

The Department of Education and Science has advised that for an institution to be considered for inclusion under section 4, it must be an industrial school, a reformatory school, an orphanage, a children's home, a special school for children with a physical or intellectual disability or a hospital providing medical or psychiatric services to people with a physical or mental disability or mental illness. It must also be one in which children were placed and resident and in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function. The Department of Education and Science further advises that hostels are not one of the categories of institutions listed as institutions which can be considered and, as such, it is not open to consider the inclusion of the Regina Coeli Hostel in the Schedule. That Department has further advised that the question of including additional institutions has now been fully considered and it is not proposed to add any further institutions to the Schedule.

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