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IF THE MOTHER and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation is dissolved as expected tomorrow, survivors will be “denied” justice, one witness has said.
Síobhan, who gave birth to a son in Denny House in Dublin in the 1980s, gave testimony to the Commission in 2017. She says there were a number of inaccuracies in her testimony in the Commission’s final report.
Despite “immense pressure” and “unbelievable coercion”, she managed to keep her son.
She told
TheJournal.ie her experience was “misrepresented” to a “shocking extent” in the final report and important context was left out.
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A number of religious organisations have apologised for their role in operating the Mother and Baby Homes.
A research report into operation of the institutions, published on Tuesday, examined eight mother and baby homes, a number of former workhouses and four Magdalene laundries.
Some of those investigated were operated by the Presbyterian Church.
In any forthcoming inquiry, or process, we will certainly co-operate as far as we are able
Right Rev Dr David Bruce
Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Right Rev Dr David Bruce said: “We deeply regret and unreservedly apologise for the damaging effects of institutional care, in which the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, or its members, played a part.
The legal status of illegitimacy survived until 1987.
The Commission, which published its almost 3,000 page report on Tuesday last, was established because of concerns that had been raised. The report notes that mother and baby homes did not originate in Ireland and the earliest mother and baby homes were not established by Catholic religious orders.
There is a long history of charitable institutions catering for abandoned, or neglected children, and charities that supported widows, but unmarried mothers were not a popular cause for benefactors. The origins of mother and baby homes in Britain, the USA and Australia can be traced to Magdalen Asylums and other institutions that were established. By the end of the nineteenth century every major city in Britain and the United States had several such institutions.