One minute spent in Mother and Baby Home should be enough for access to redress
One minute spent in Mother and Baby Home should be enough for access to redress - The Labour Party
Labour Senator from Cork South Central Laura Harmon said anyone who spent so much as one minute in a Mother and Baby Home should be entitled to redress.
Following the publication of the first annual report by the Special Advocate for survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, Senator Harmon urged for compassion to prevail for the thousands of survivors who are excluded from the scheme.
Senator Harmon said:
“The Labour Party put forward amendments in February 2021 to expand the redress scheme to ensure access to the scheme for anyone who spent any time in a Mother and Baby institution. The then Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition failed to act to do the right thing for survivors. The report by the Special Advocate published yesterday presents another opportunity to address the pain of survivors.
“Anyone who spent so much as a minute should have access to the redress scheme. We must remember that many women would have entered homes towards the very end of their pregnancy, and would have spent considerably less than six months there; yet they will not be eligible due to the six-month rule.
“There is no amount of redress that would ever make up for the horrific trauma inflicted on survivors of Mother and Baby Homes. But retraumatising survivors by creating a process whereby some who are more equal than others needs to end.
“We will look back on years to come and wonder why we failed to do the right thing from the start. The redress scheme must and can be extended. I implore the Government to step up and do the right thing.”