Mother and Baby Home Inquiry Terms in New Year
By Conall O Fatharta and Niall Murray
The terms of reference for the mother-and-baby home inquiry will be published following the first Cabinet meeting in the new year. A spokesperson for Children’s Minister Dr James Reilly said to allow the “requisite space for debate” on the issue, the terms of reference, which had been promised before the Christmas recess, would now be brought to Cabinet for agreement on January 8. A Dail debate on the inquiry would take place the following week. Dr Reilly has been meeting with advocacy groups in recent weeks and says he is “confident” the inquiry will be as “inclusive as possible” and have the support of “those most centrally involved”. A number of the groups have warned that the inquiry needs to be as wide as possible to achieve any degree of support and must look at issues like forced and illegal adoptions, the Magdalene Laundries and the vaccine trials. Earlier this year, the Adoption Authority admitted for the first time that potentially thousands of people had been illegally adopted here. The claim directly contradicted former children’s minister and now Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald’s statement in the Dail last year that every adoption carried out by the State was legal. Earlier this month, the Irish Examiner revealed a previously unknown fifth vaccine trial was carried out on children here in the 1960s. The Department of Health has said it has “no information” on where, or in what institution, the trial took place, while Dr Reilly has not made contact with GlaxoSmithKline in relation to the revelations. Justice For Magdalenes Research has also welcomed the recent publication of a Bill offering a range of health services to survivors of Magdalene Laundries. However, a spokesperson for JFMR said a number of recommendations from Justice Quirke 18 months ago were not contained in the Bill, which had no provisions for Magdalene survivors living abroad. “There is no provision in the Bill for complementary therapies or counselling for immediate relatives. These services were part of Judge Quirke’s proposals, so we will be seeking clarification from the Minister for Health in that regard. The Bill contains no provision for healthcare for Magdalene survivors abroad. We wrote to the Minister for Health in August seeking clarification about whether health insurance will be provided to these women, and we have not yet received a reply,” said a spokesperson. Meanwhile, a Government decision is likely today on how to deal with historic child abuse cases that were awaiting the outcome of Louise O’Keeffe’s landmark ruling in the European Court of Human Rights. Around 135 similar cases — of people suing the State for abuse suffered in schools as children — were pending when the Cork woman lost a Supreme Court case in 2008. But 90 were withdrawn before January’s European judgment in her favour, after what their legal representatives say were threatening letters from the State Claims Agency. Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan will bring proposals for treatment of the remaining cases to Cabinet this morning, but a definitive outcome is unlikely today on dealing with the withdrawn cases.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.