Mother-and-baby homes: Panel backs public inquiry

A PANEL has called for a public inquiry to be held into institutions for unmarried mothers in the North of Ireland.

The three experts also advised that there should be immediate redress payments to survivors who were housed in ‘work house’ institutions in Derry, Belfast and Newry.

The devolved government committed to an investigation after research into mother-and-baby homes and Magdalene Laundries was published.

Women said they were detained against their will, used as unpaid labour and had to give up babies for adoption.

The primary recommendation in Tuesday’s report is to establish an “integrated Investigation” by a non-statutory independent panel, feeding into a statutory public inquiry.

There are also further recommendations for supporting measures to ensure that victims and survivors can participate in the investigation, including access to records legislation.

The Truth Recovery Design Panel recommends:

Urgent appointment of a non-statutory independent panel of experts, including those with personal experience

Legislation to appoint a statutory public inquiry

New legislation to secure access to records for survivors and their families

Immediate redress payments from the beginning of the investigation

The panel, along with victims and survivors, called on “all state, religious and other institutions, agencies, organisations and individuals complicit in the processes of institutionalisation and forced labour, family separation and adoption to act without delay in issuing unqualified apologies”.

They said that they should clearly state their role, “accept responsibility for harms done; demonstrate sincerity in their apology; and demonstrate the safeguards now in place to ensure there will be no repetition of the inhumanity and suffering to which they contributed”.

The homes and laundries across the island of Ireland have in recent years come to the attention of United Nations (UN) human rights monitors.

Dr Lia Nadaraia, who sits on the UN’s Committee Against Torture, and Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), said there was evidence of “systematic torture and ill-treatment”.

“Girls and women were involuntarily detained, stripped of their identities, forced to work constantly, and not paid wages,” she said.

Dr Nadaraia said any investigation should be aimed at uncovering the full truth about what happened in the institutions, bringing about prosecutions if possible, and providing financial redress for victims.

The Truth Recovery Design Panel, which was established by the Stormont Executive in March, has been working with survivors to come up with recommendations.

The three members are Professor Phil Scraton from Queen’s University law school, Dr Maeve O’Rourke from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, and Deirdre Mahon, executive director for social work at the Western Health Trust.

Prof Scraton said that “lives and futures lost through the cruelty within these institutions cannot be recovered, but we must acknowledge the inter-generational pain and suffering inflicted on victims, survivors and families”.

At a press conference, Prof Scraton thanked the victims and survivors, and their families, but said that their pain “will never, ever, be assuaged by whatever we do because this is one of the great scandals of our time”.

Dr O’Rourke said that any future investigation must be accessible to everyone involved, in particular those with disabilities.

“The key priorities raised by survivors and the relatives are that funding and resources should be sufficient to ensure effective and sustainable implementation of all the panel’s recommendations; that the human rights of survivors and relatives are central to the recommendations’ implementation; that all of the measures recommended must ensure full access for victims, survivors and relatives of the deceased to information,” she said.

The researchers recommended there should be more investigations into levels of infant mortality among children who were born to mothers in the homes.

They also said there were more questions to be asked about potential illegal adoptions, including the movement of babies across the border with the Republic of Ireland.

Religious orders, and the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, have said they will co-operate with the new investigation.

There has already been a state inquiry into mother-and-baby homes in the Republic of Ireland.

Campaigners in the North of Ireland – including the survivors’ group Birth Mothers and Their Children For Justice NI – have said the investigation must have the power to compel religious organisations and state agencies to provide records and witnesses.

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