âMoral and financial ruinâ
Saying she was âincredibly disappointedâ, Rosemary Adaser said in laying blame at the feet of womenâs families, the report did not heed âthe rigidly-imposedâ rules of the Church and State then in place.
Families of unmarried mothers going against those norms would have faced âmoral and financial ruinâ, she said.
Meanwhile, the report did not go far enough on the issue of âforced illegal adoptionsâ, and mothers giving up their babies were âcaptured in a systemâ where they had âno choiceâ, she said.
Reading the report, she felt survivors were being told âit wasnât as bad as you lot make it out to beâ, she said. The treatment of mixed-race children born in the homes had been largely âignoredâ, she said.
The report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes has been described as a âdamning indictmentâ of both the church and State, by a coalition of survivorsâ groups.
In a statement, the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors said the âtruly shockingâ report vindicated those who had been campaigning on the issue for many years.
The long-awaited report, published on Tuesday, found that women who gave birth outside of marriage were subjected to âparticularly harsh treatmentâ by society at the time.
The report said responsibility for that cruel treatment ârests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families,â but added it was supported and condoned by the âinstitutions of the State and the churches.â