An inter-departmental historical review of mother-and-baby homes throughout the State is to be completed by the end of the month, Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan has said.
He told the Dáil the group would look at the issues so the Government would make decisions on the precise content, format and organisation of what further action it would take.
“Relevant Government departments have already met today and are working together in preparation for an early consideration and determination of the best course of action,” he said.
Mr Flanagan was responding to questions on the Government's response to the deaths of almost 800 children in a mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway, between the 1920s and the 1960s. The review group, he said, included representatives of the Departments of Justice, Health, Children, Education and Environment.
“We will properly review these issues,” said Mr Flanagan. “We will not confine this review to Tuam.”
The Minister said the revelations in Tuam had brought to the fore the situation in other mother-and-baby homes which had to date not featured prominently in the various reviews and investigations dealing with many of the past abuses inflicted on vulnerable citizens, many of them women and children. The truth had to be established, he added.
Fledgling State Mr Flanagan said that Ireland was now confronted by the fact that as a newly
established State, “we besmirched our lofty ambitions and ideals and made hollow our promise to cherish all of the children of the nation equally’’. He added that as “in their day, these women and children were unjustly made to feel so much shame, we must now carry the shame for how this country dealt with them in their time of need’’.
Independent TD Lucinda Creighton said remarks attributed to An Garda Síochána, that there was no suggestion of impropriety, were "premature in the extreme". Mr Flanagan said he did not direct the Garda on such matters.
Earlier, Independent TD Catherine Murphy said she was concerned about the sanitised language used relating to the Tuam discovery. “We are hearing references to ‘burials’ when, in fact, we are talking about bodies being disposed of in a septic tank.”
Ms Murphy said that if the septic tank was discovered anywhere else in the country, other than beside a religious institution, it would already have been declared a crime scene.
Abdicate responsibility
Sandra McLellan (SF) said Church and State could not be allowed to abdicate responsibility. “The Government must face up to this shameful period of our recent history and shine a light on the dark secrets of mother-and-baby homes.”
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said "a shocking litany of disregard for citizens'' had been revealed.
“It has taken decades for our country to get to the level of maturity where we look back now in shock at what happened in the past,” he added. “We will have to reveal the truth . . . and that is what the Government will do.”
