I DIDN’T LEAK THE REPORT TO MEDIA... I JUST GAVE COMMENTS

TAOISEACH Micheál Martin has denied leaking the damning report into the mother and baby homes scandal to the media before survivors got it.

Survivors from the homes expressed their upset on Sunday when details of the long-awaited report were published before they were provided with a copy.

Details from the long-awaited Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes report, published yesterday, were leaked to a newspaper over the weekend. In the same article, Mr Martin, pictured, g a ve c o mments on a forthcoming State apology that he would issue over the mother and baby homes.

He has now said of the leak: ‘No, it didn’t [come from my office] and I commented in relation to the issue itself and I’ve commented before in relation to it. I would have notified the Minister [for Children Roderic O’Gorman] I was commenting on it, and indeed my colleague [Green Party leader] Eamon Ryan as well, that I was commenting on the report, that I made comments on... not on the report, sorry, on the fact that there would be an apology, sorry, that I would be issuing an apology.’

Asked why he did not contact Minister O’Gorman and subsequently the survivors’ groups alerting them that details would be published the following day, Mr Martin said: ‘I didn’t get any understanding that the report was leaked and I don’t think the report itself was l eaked, but t here were elements of the report in the article subsequently.’

However, Mr Martin did comment on the report in the newspaper article, stating that its contents showed a ‘very oppressive’ and ‘deeply misogynistic’ attitude present across Church and State at the time.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told RTÉ Radio on Monday that ‘very few people’ had a copy of the report. He said some details were sent in a memo to Cabinet on Friday but that it was clear the newspaper article had further information than this.

‘There were things in the report [in the newspaper] that were not in the memo… only a small number of people would have had it over the Christmas period,’ he said.

Minister O’Gorman wrote to survivors groups on Sunday expressing his ‘anger’ over the leak. And yesterday, he said: ‘I made it clear that I wanted an investigation to take place. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste agreed with that and that was agreed at Cabinet today and that will take place.

‘I think it’s important that the significance of today isn’t overshadowed by that issue, an investigation will be taking place, I think it needs to show respect to survivors f or the breach of trust that happened.’

Cabinet yesterday agreed to sign off on an investigation into the leak.

‘Only a small number had it’