Leo delay in meeting Tuam survivors a ‘farce’
TUAM Babies historian Catherine Corless has described Leo Varadkar’s intention to meet with her and the survivors ‘in due course’ as a farce.
The Taoiseach this week told the Dáil he plans to meet Ms Corless and the Tuam survivors, ‘when we are ready to make a decision on the next steps’.
Mr Varadkar made a private visit to the site on September 7, without informing survivors or Ms Corless. Commenting on Mr Varadkar’s Dáil statement, she told the MoS: ‘Leo just ticked a box by his flying visit to the Tuam Home site and has no interest whatsoever in meeting with any of the Tuam Home survivors or myself.
‘He has had a year and a half to arrange this, since the remains of the Tuam Home babies were discovered in the sewage tank, so stating that it would take a few months to arrange a meeting is a farce.’
Ms Corless also said the Government has ‘used every tactic of delay’ instead of making a decision on the site.
She said the Fine Gael-led administration have used ‘cost, time and legal sensitives’ as excuses not to act.
She added: ‘There is but one humane response, which would have been answered promptly in any other country, and that is to give those babies and young children the decent Christian burial they were denied by the Bon Secour Sisters and the State.
‘It begs the question, is it possible that the Irish mentality still exists, some 60 years on from that dark era, that these babies are still just society’s outcasts, the illegitimate, and a nuisance to society?’