Survivors of a Protestant children’s home in Dublin where at least 200 babies and infants died want their case included in a Government review.
Former resident Derek Leinster has called on TDs to demand Bethany Home is part of an investigation into the state’s involvement in the Magdalene laundries.
The Bethany Survivors’ Group represents people who were infants at the Rathgar home, which was run between 1922 and 1972. It was recently refused access to a state-run compensation fund for a second time
Senator Martin McAleese was appointed to chair a committee that will report the state’s role in alleged abuse at the Magdalene laundries, operated by four Catholic religious orders.
Mr Leinster, who was in Bethany Home from 1941-45, wrote to TDs and Senator McAleese pleading that he extend his remit to include the Protestant home.
“There are similarities with the case put by successive governments in their refusal to add Magdalene laundries and Bethany Home to the Schedule to the Redress Act,” Mr Leinster wrote. “It is to be hoped that you may be in position to address that historic wrong, which is a continuing stain on the reputation of Irish society.
“I ask you to review this material and ask the ministers responsible to include Bethany Home within your remit. State neglect of Bethany Home residents is also a stain on Irish society.”
The Bethany group claims to have documents proving state officials ignored evidence of neglect and record numbers of deaths in the home in the late 1930s. They also claim the state ordered the home not to take in Catholic children.
Last year, the group, with the help of Griffith College Dublin lecturer Niall Meehan, discovered 219 unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery, Harold’s Cross, of children from the home. Records show more than one third died in the five years from 1935-39.
PA