Survivors of mother and baby homes to protest outside Dail

SURVIVORS of mother and baby homes plan to protest a redress scheme which excludes 60 per cent of survivors, outside the Dáil on January 19.

The Government have said they have “no plans” to open up a redress scheme to all survivors, despite the High Court finding that those who came forward were treated unlawfully by the commission of investigation.

Clondalkin man David Kinsella, who was born in St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on the Navan Road and never saw his birth mother again, said survivors thought their decades long campaign for justice was over via “heightened promises”.

“Sadly, Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman doesn’t have the backbone to tell his civil servants and Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar, that a rightful and substantial redress has to be given to all survivors, regardless of time spent in mother and baby homes,” he said.

“Survivors are waiting a hundred years for Church and State to correct a multitude of wrongdoings on mothers and infants who were forced into protracted detainment.”

Meanwhile, a failure by Government to deliver answers on how a major report on mother-and-baby homes was leaked to the media before it was due to be published.

Families and survivors – many of whom gave testimony to the commission – learned about the report’s content in the media after it appeared in the Sunday Independent.