‘The State failed you’, says Taoiseach to those in mother-and-baby homes

‘The State failed you’, says Taoiseach to those in mother-and-baby homes

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has apologised to the women and children of mother-and-baby homes for a “profound generational wrong”.

“The State failed you,” he said. “Each of you deserved so much better.”

He said the women and children had nothing to be ashamed of. “The shame was not theirs it was ours. It was our shame that we did not show them the respect and compassion which we as a country owed them. It remains our shame.”

Speaking in the Dáil, Mr Martin said the report from the Commission of Investigation into the homes has afforded the country a “moment for us as a society to recognise a profound failure of empathy, understanding and basic humanity over a lengthy period”.

He said the commission’s report reveals the dominant role of the Churches and their moral code and lays bare the failures of the State.

They have produced the definitive account, he said, of how Ireland responded to the needs of single women and their children at a time when they “most needed support and protection”.

The lack of birth information is a “terrible burden” on the lives of survivors, he said.

Some children who were subsequently boarded out experienced heart-breaking exploitation, neglect and abuse within the families and communities in which they were placed which he described as “unforgiveable”.

He said that many left these shores to escape this prejudice and escape their families.

The Taoiseach said: “On behalf of the Government, the State and its citizens, I apologise for the profound generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their children who ended up in a Mother and Baby Home or a County Home.

“As the commission says plainly – ‘they should not have been there’.”

Micheál Martin apologised for the shame and stigma which the women and children were subjected to and which, for some, he said “remains a burden to this day”.

“In apologising, I want to emphasise that each of you were in an institution because of the wrongs of others.  Each of you is blameless, each of you did nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of.”

He said the lack of respect for the “fundamental dignity and rights” for mothers and children who spent time in these institutions was “humbly acknowledged and deeply regretted”.

“We honoured piety, but failed to show even basic kindness to those who needed it most.”

In his State apology, the Taoiseach said the nation must understand and accept the failings of its past.

He said “we must also learn from them”.

Mr Martin said Ireland must always seek to create a “more just society, grounded in respect, diversity, tolerance and equality”.

Institutionalisation creates power structures, he said which can lead to abuses of power. He said it must never again be an option for our country in any circumstance.

Mr Martin said that testimonies show that this treatment of women and their children was a “direct result” of how the State and society acted.

The report, he said, presents us with profound questions.

He said “we embraced a perverse religious morality and control, judgementalism and moral certainty but shunned our daughters”.

Following the Taoiseach’s apology, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said for too many years Ireland was a cold house for children born outside of marriage and he paid tribute to the work of historian Catherine Corless.