IRELAND
Irish Times
Marie O’Halloran
Reflecting on the oppressive Ireland of mother and baby homes makes it easy to understand how Adolf Hitler was able to do what he did, the Dáil has heard.
Sinn Féin deputy Martin Kenny said that when he was growing up, “I often wondered about Hitler, the Germans and what happened to the Jews and how he was able to do what he did.
“If you sit and think about the kind of Ireland we had,” Mr Kenny said, “it is very easy to understand how people were able to do these things.”
The Sligo-Leitrim TD was speaking during a debate on the commission of investigation confirming human remains on the site of the former Tuam mother and baby home.
He highlighted the case of a woman born in Tuam whose earliest memory was of hunger. He said that she and other children “used to scrape the dirt off the walls and eat it”. Her childhood was one of fear and of the “very worst horrors we could imagine”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.