Redress scheme for mother and baby home residents to be approved shortly

A redress scheme for people who spent time in mother and baby homes is expected to be approved by the Government in the coming weeks, a spokesman for Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has said.

It is understood that the scheme will initially involve a lump sum payment and an enhanced medial card, similar to a redress scheme for women who had been in Magdalene laundries.

It has been estimated that the mother and baby home scheme could cost some €900 million. Once it is in place the Government is to seek a significant financial contribution towards the scheme from relevant Catholic religious congregations and Protestant bodies which were involved in running the homes.

However, there will be no formal talks with any church entities until the redress scheme has been approved by the Cabinet. It is hoped that applications for redress from people who spent time in the homes could open early next year.

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Legislation on the excavation of children's remains at sites of the Tuam and other mother and baby homes is also expected to be passed early next year.

Mr O'Gorman's spokesman said a related report from the Oireachtas committee on children, submitted last July, was still being studied at the department.

Independent agency

Under the Bill, an independent agency will be set up to oversee the excavation, exhumation, identification and reburial of any remains found at the burial sites.

In its report published in January the Mother and Baby Homes Commission found it "'likely that most of the children who died in Tuam are buried inappropriately in the grounds of the institution".

Human remains were found there in a “structure with 20 chambers...built within the decommissioned large sewage tank”, it said. There was also “evidence of possible burials in other parts of what were the grounds”.

Dr Niamh McCullagh, the forensic archaeologist who led the commission of investigation team at the Tuam, Seán Ross Abbey and Bessborough Homes, told the committee in April the remains were “mixed with others making individualisation, and subsequent identification particularly difficult”.

Regarding Tuam, she said, “it cannot be assumed that all of the individuals buried here will be identified, whether through DNA or other identification processes.”

Misapplication

To refer to exhumation at the site was “possibly a misapplication of that term,” she said, as it referred “to situations where bodies have been interred in an appropriate way”. She felt “excavation” was the more appropriate word.

Speaking on 'The Missing Children' programme about the Tuam Home, broadcast on ITV last Sunday and on RTÉ One on Tuesday, Dr McCullagh said the objective of the test excavation she led in 2016/17 "was not to recover the remains, it was to establish if they were present or not" and that "the exact figures are not possible to say at the moment".

However, she said “it was possible to report that there were multiple sets of remains of juveniles at this location, and that these were potentially in significant quantities”.