‘I want to know what happened to my sister’ – Decades of grave injustices and still no answers for Mother and Baby Home survivors

Detailed inquests into the death of each and every baby at Mother and Baby homes would see an “unprecedented” cost to the State but for survivors, a price cannot be put on justice, an Oireachtas Committee heard today.

Despite countless hours of discussion and debate of the fall-out of the Mother and Baby homes report in the Dáil, Seanad and the Oireachtas Children’s Committee, survivors still have few answers.

Today the Committee undertook a marathon eight-hour sitting over four separate sessions as part of its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Burial Bill, which would allow excavations, exhumations and re-interment of remains at the sites of the former homes.

In heartbreaking testimony, Peter Mulryan from Tuam Home Survivors Network reminded the committee of the hardship he still faces to this day.

“I would like to know where my sister is at this moment,” he told TDs and senators.

“Every time I go to bed at night, I think of her.

“Is she dead or alive, I do not know. The information I got is so scant, it is unbelievable to do this to a human being that was recorded born as a healthy baby and yet nine months later she died... from what?”

He questioned if the nuns who ran the home drowned the babies, or if his sister died from malnutrition or neglect and said that he has been “denied” this information.

Having shared the story of his sister in lecture halls in the US, Mr Mulryan hoped that perhaps she actually did not die in the Tuam home, but was adopted by an American family and would contact him, having heard him speak.

He said he would much prefer this scenario over the one where she is “decaying away” in a septic tank.

“That’s what I’m hoping will happen rather than being down there in that septic tank decaying away in such a situation, not even put into a coffin. Just a bit of cloth and being left on a shelf there. All under the darkness of night.

“You make some allowance for it in a war but there’s no war in this country to do that with such innocent babies,” he said.

However, not all survivors want remains exhumed. David Dodd from the Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance told the meeting this would be very “traumatising” for the mothers in his experience.

All survivors agree there should not be 67 apartments built on the mother and baby home site in Bessborough, after a company which applied for planning permission lodged an appeal against a decision by Cork City Council.

The State will need to pay for a range of full inquiries to determine how around 9,000 children died in mother and baby homes, according to Professor Phil Scraton of Queens University, who also gave evidence to the committee.

He said this would see an “unprecedented” cost to the State, but a price cannot be put on justice.

Prof Scraton is best known for his extensive research into the Hillsborough disaster.

“I don’t think we can put a price on truth. We cannot put a price on accountability,” he told the committee.

“This will be unprecedented in its cost, in its organisation, in its structure, it is a price that will have to be paid. There is no question in my mind about that,” he said.

Due to “mass deaths” taking place, there is a need for “multiple inquests”.

“This would be a major investment for the Irish State, there would be no question about it.

“But justice does not come cheap when the State has, over years, administered injustice,” he added.

Galway historian Catherine Corless, who uncovered that around 800 babies were buried in a septic tank at a site of a former Mother and Baby home in Tuam, also told TDs and senators that if there is to be an investigation into every death in a mother and baby home, this could take around 25 years.

She said the State has been “dragging its feet” in seeking justice for survivors and families who have relatives buried in sites like Tuam and Bessborough.

In a horrific detail, Ms Corless said that a photograph from an interim report of the remains in Tuam shows “evidence of rodent gnawing”.

She said a DNA database should be set up, which would help survivors identify relatives who are buried at sites.

“There seems to be an absolute lack of will from the Government to act on this. It’s been dragged out and dragged out.

“It’s time we make up to them and treat [the babies] as individuals, as Irish citizens.”

Local knowledge could play a crucial role in researching and identifying how every child died in the homes, the committee heard.

Ms Corless said that in her own research, she found that locals were reluctant to talk about the Tuam mother and baby home as some local businesses engaged in trade with the home.

She said they had put it at the “back of their minds” and even requests from former Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone for people to come forward with local knowledge “fell on deaf ears”.

The Committee also heard that the Burials Bill needs to see specific coroners designated to deal with mass graves and that current coroner laws are out of date and not fit to deal with the “mass” inquests needed.

Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns said Justice Minister Helen McEntee should urge the Attorney General to ensure that inquests be held into all the deaths.

Irish Independent