Survivors dying before they get compensation
Government warned mother and baby home victims may miss out on redress scheme
MOTHER and baby home survivors are dying before they can receive compensation under a longawaited State redress scheme, the Government has been warned.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman has also been criticised over plans to create an online application process for the scheme, which Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion said could leave victims, many of whom have literacy issues, ‘vulnerable to being fleeced by solicitors’.
Ms Funchion, who chairs the Oireachtas Children’s Committee, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We are getting an awful lot of queries… because they have heard nothing, many victims fear they may have missed the scheme. They are very conscious of time and the lack of it. They are also very uneasy about dealing with an online scheme as has been mooted.
‘A lot of people are contacting us in a panic saying “do we need a solicitor for this” and “have we missed the scheme”. They don’t, but I am concerned people will be fleeced by solicitors when they don’t need a solicitor.
‘The minister and the Government need to understand they are dealing with a vulnerable elderly group, many of whom are deeply uneasy with doing things online. ‘Any proposal to create an online scheme displays a complete lack of understanding of the people they are dealing with need.
‘There are, in some cases, literacy issues because of the way victims were originally treated by the State as children.’
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme was supposed to be a key element of the State’s response to the incarceration of 56,000 mothers and 57,000 babies in homes across the country.
The report did not cover all institutions or boarded out children, but it is estimated around 34,000 people will be eligible for financial payments under the scheme, with 19,000 entitled to access health supports, at a cost of €800m to the State
But despite the publication of the controversial Mother and Baby Homes Investigation chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy two years ago, the compensation scheme is still not up and running. Criticising the delay, Deputy Funchion said mother and baby home survivors ‘are a group of people who have been serially betrayed by the State’. And the Carlow-Kilkenny TD added: ‘Now even the compensation scheme for these betrayals is displaying an utter lack of empathy and understanding for the people it is supposed to serve.
‘The minister must display far more sensitivity and speed in the implementation of this scheme.’
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 was signed on July 11, but it’s implementation is now certain to drift into 2024.
This compensation scheme followed the 2021 report by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, which was established in 2015.
The report was sharply criticised by survivors and diverse political leaders, including then Labour leader Alan Kelly and the now Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who publicly questioned why the Commission did not engage with survivors or explain how they arrived at their conclusions.
The Department of Children said it will announce a launch date for the scheme ‘in due course.’
It added work is underway to open the scheme ‘for applications as soon as possible’.