Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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898. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if an institution (details supplied) is now included in the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023. [44205/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is designed to provide payments and medical supports to people who spent time in one or more of the Mother and Baby or County Home Institutions, that were identified by the Commission of Investigation as having a main function of providing sheltered and supervised ante and post-natal facilities to single mothers and their children. The 44 institutions covered by the Payment Scheme are set out in Schedule 1 to the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act, 2023.

Chapter 2 of the Social History section of the Commission of Investigation report - www.gov.ie/en/publication/89e43-chapter-2-institutions/ - details the different types of institutions that existed and whether they fulfilled the criteria to be considered as Mother and Baby institutions.

The institution at St. Patrick’s, Navan Road, originally known as Pelletstown, is included in the Payment Scheme. Chapter 13 of the Individual Institutions chapter of the Commission Report - www.gov.ie/en/publication/d4b3d-final-report-of-the-commission-of-investigation-into-mother-and-baby-homes/#individual-institutions - clarifies that an Adoption Society named St. Louise's Adoption Society, with a site at James's Street, sometimes met in Pelletstown. St. Louise's is, therefore, not included in the scheme.

The Government recognises that there are people who suffered stigma, trauma and abuse in other institutions. If it were to come to light that an institution, in which the State had a regulatory or inspection function, fulfilled a similar function with regard to single women and their children as those included in the Scheme, section 49 of the Act provides that the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, may insert an additional institution into the Schedule.