Archive for the ‘Children and Youth Affairs’ Category
Statement from the Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors
IT IS TIME FOR IRELAND TO FINALLY DEAL WITH
THE REALITY AND LEGACY OF IT’S TREATMENT OF SINGLE MOTHERS AND THEIR BABIES
SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE STATE
SURVIVOR COMMUNITY DEMAND ACTION INSTEAD OF WORDS
Now that the work of historian and heroic campaigner Catherine Corless has been vindicated in the eyes of the world, it is time for immediate action on the part of the Government to meet with the survivor representatives to resolve the serious outstanding issues faced by our ageing and overwhelmingly elderly community. We have sadly witnessed many of our active members pass away without ever seeing a personal resolution to their many years of often heartbreaking campaigning work. In this instance, justice delayed is justice permanently denied.The Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors have contacted the Taoiseach’s office to request that Enda Kenny immediately meet with representatives of the survivor community to resolve the outstanding issues facing elderly, and dying Irish citizens, who have been through enough in their lives and who need acknowledgement and some substantive movement by the Government before it too late for them.
All of our community universally acknowledges and salutes the trojan work of Catherine Corless over many years. Others needed proof but we never doubted Catherine for a minute. We trust that now that it is shown that Tuam, the 5th biggest of the 9 Mother and Baby homes, did indeed see 796 infants and children die over it’s lifetime, that Ireland acknowledge the real scale of the horror of Mother and Baby homes. CMABS have attached a Fact Sheet to this email with confirmed deaths and conservative estimates of yet unknown numbers of babies who died from neglect and indifference. It is absolutely clear that, and CMABS would like to stress that this is a conservative estimate, at least 6,000 babies, children and mothers died in Ireland’s now globally notorious Mother and Baby homes.
The attached Fact Sheet reveals the newly researched, registered deaths that occurred in Castlepollard Mother and Baby home as well as the first release of any figures for Stillbirths in any of the M&B homes. These forgotten babies who never drew breath have previously been overlooked but they deserve the same attention and sorrow as any other human being. These tragic infants were as deserving of life as any other survivor and must not be forgotten. They are our crib mates and our community will not forget them.
CMABS primary goal is the Full Inclusion of all living survivors in the current Commission of Inquiry. It is deeply unfair and hurtful to our community that so many of our fellow survivors have been omitted from the Inquiry. The real issue here is Ireland’s treatment of single mothers and their babies, not what happened to some of them behind the High Walls of the Mother and Baby homes. There cannot be a hierarchy of survivors, we are all equal and we need immediate FULL INCLUSION for all survivors.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, we await your urgent response…
CMABS & friends
ENDS
Please help me find my missing brothers
An open letter to the Irish Government.
I am writing this letter out of pure desperation. It is 2 am Irish time and I feel I’m at my wits end. I have done absolutely everything I can think of to find my missing brothers; I have written over 200 letters and emails and I have gotten nowhere. My kitchen has turned into an office, I am a one woman show, I have boxes and folders with every single letter copied and filed as proof of my search. This is my last-ditch attempt to try and find any shred of evidence regarding my brothers. Somebody, somewhere must know who they are and what happened to them. They are two of Ireland’s longest missing children, but very few people know that. I don’t know anyone who knew them. I am an only child. I don’t have a photo of them. All I have is certificates, and that’s it, that is all there is to prove they existed. I have created more paperwork writing to every Government Minister involved in the mother and baby homes scandal, every Garda Commissioner, the Attorney General, you name it. And what have I got in return? “Sorry we can’t help you”.
My brothers are attached to the 796 children who died in the controversial St. Brigid’s Mother and Baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway which was run by the Bons Secours nuns from 1925 to 1961. There has been a Commission established into the Mother and Baby homes, but I am not involved with them, and anyone I approach for help, directs me to the Commission, everyone is hiding behind the Commission which in my personal view is not doing enough to establish where my brothers and all the missing children are. Did the pied piper dance his way into Tuam over a forty-year period and take away 796 children never to return to their families? Did no one seen him spirit these children away without anyone raising a red flag? Or did the children die in the home and are they buried all over the land under a housing estate? Who knows? If the children are buried on the grounds, where are they? No one sat down and spent years writing up Death Certs unless children died or were illegally adopted.
Let me tell you all I know about John Desmond and William Joseph Dolan. They are my brothers, but we have never met each other, if they are alive, they don’t know about me, they may not even know about each other. They may not even know they were adopted. If they are dead, I don’t know where they are buried. I know there is a “small children’s grave at the back of the former mother and baby home in Tuam” where I was directed by Sr. Marie Ryan with the Bons Secours nuns when I wrote to her in 2013 but I don’t know where exactly their alleged plots are. They are known as the “Tuam brothers” while I am known as the “Dolan sister”. I will not identify myself at this stage, but I am willing to go anywhere at any time to meet anyone who has any information about them because the Irish Government and Police simply cannot or will not give me any answers.
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CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO WHO KNEW WHAT AND WHEN THEY KNEW IT
The Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors (CMABS) strongly supports the actions of Whistleblower Philip Garland, former assistant National Director of child and family services with the Health Service Executive and who was Director of child protection in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin from 2003 to 2009. We applaud Mr. Garland who is currently going public with a number of very serious allegations about senior civil servants and Ministers knowing about an explosive internal report into forged infant mortality rates, illegal adoptions and industrial scale child trafficking inside and outside of Mother and Baby homes. CMABS understands there are many more serious matters to be revealed by Mr. Garland who has recently founded a Charity for the survivors of church and state abuse in Ireland and abroad.
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Press Release:
SURVIVORS MEET MINISTER KATHERINE ZAPPONE
“At this rate, our entire community will be reunited with headstones in graveyards”
MINOR PROGRESS PROMISED ON LONG OVERDUE MEMORIALS
A delegation of five members of the Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors (CMABS) held a hour and a quarter meeting with Minister for Children Katherine Zappone at the Department of Children today. CMABS are extremely disappointed with the Ministers response to their reasonable requests for progress. It is clear that the change of Government earlier this year has reset the clock to zero in relation to our fight for truth and justice and survivors have to almost start from scratch in regards to practically everything. However the most prevalent word used by the Minister today was “NO!”.
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