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Updated 10.45pm
MORE THAN 298 children across ten mother and baby homes were subject to experimental vaccine trials during the 1960s and 1970s, Newstalk reported today.
Newstalk Breakfast claims that vaccine trials were conducted at homes at Bessborough in Cork, St Peter’s in Westmeath, St Clare’s in Stamullen, and The Good Shepherd in Dunboyne, as well as six other Dublin homes.
It is believed the trials took place between 1960 to 1976.
While the state could not provide the information about the number of drug trials that were carried out on children, Glaxo SmithKline were compelled to supply documents in relation to the drug trials in 2000.
Yesterday, the Junior Minister for Health Kathleen Lynch told The Sunday Independent that the vaccine trials carried out in mother and baby homes should form part of any forthcoming government inquiry.
The Irish Independent reported in 2010 about the ’four-in-one’ vaccine trials being carried out at Bessborough.
Sister Sarto, a retired nun, who was working in Bessborough also told Newstalk Breakfast that parental consent was given for these trials.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Tanya Ward from Children’s Rights Alliance said that the State should “at the very least” take responsibility for what happened in the mother and baby homes.
She said that even in the 1940s the state had a responsibility and an obligation to “protect children who were without the protection of their parents”.
Ward said that even if a wide-ranging inquiry is put in place, most likely, there will be “very little criminal prosecutions”.
She added that she thought that there is strong evidence that, if anything, there was a high infant mortality rate at the Tuam mother and baby home which she said brought the care regime into question.
First published 8.38am
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How can you find out if you were part of these clinical trials? It’s bad enough having no family history with your files sealed, but this is another level of horror.
You can try and contact ‘wellcome’ now GSK to release the names Adele. Not too forthcoming though. I know Mari Steed got her information. If you Google her I’m sure there’s an article on it somewhere.
I wonder is there a help line or will one will be launched soon.
I hope so Marion. I have had little success in obtaining records of trials. It would be nice to have some clarification. Just to have a bit of information would be nice. Sure I suppose if we are not entitled to our names or where our people came from, they won’t be to eager to let us know if we were guinea pigs.
There is that many bureaucratic lairs within the government it’s difficult to know who to contact. What about the adoption agency but I presume they’re closed down. The archives of the the Tuam home I know was handed to Galway Co. Co. after it’s closure in the early ’60′s. I wonder if the same applies to yourself?
Some of the homes are named here: http://www.childabusecommission.ie/publications/documents/VT%20Senior%20Counsel%20Statement.html
Thank you I will look into that. All names should be released.
We may change our moral compass guide now…..Instead of referencing the Nazi Mengeles let us refer to the medical trials going on in our mother and baby homes. That way it may come home to roost the full horror of these places……The inhumane treatment meted out to the girls, women and children is truly truly shocking. And lest anyone think the comparison to Mengeles is far fetched please remember that septic tank full of bodies. Remember too the description of the children whilst in care. We were at war with ourselves, inflicting terrible wounds……In the name of what?
Ok, but in that analogy the nuns aren’t Dr Mengele, they’re just the prison guards or the Kapos. The Doctors who actually carried out the trials are the Mengeles, right?
Agreed Adele . I was born in 1975 location unknown . They could have used me in one of these trials
Sorry Lorem. …beyond the simplicity of the analogy I can’t supply you with any softening of the blow in regards to responsibility and who did what. We are all complicit…..just following orders was and is not good enough.
@George Grey
@Lorem Ipsum
The children were injected with vaccines, not sarin, not anthrax, not bubonic plague. The children were not cut open. Many children were none the wiser about being subject to these trials until they obtained the files in adulthood.
There is no evidence that the vaccine trials caused death or injury to children who were subject to these trials. Were these trials even against Irish law at the time? These trials were much less serious than what Mengele did. The doctors involved in the vaccine trials were motivated by the fight against diseases. Mengele and his colleagues were motivated by a perverted desire to create a “master race”.
@George Grey
There is no evidence that the deaths of the babies whose bodies were buried at Tuam were caused by foul play.
We are NOT all complicit. I don’t know about you but I played no part in any medical trials, neither did I know of any. Almost all of this took place before I was even born so I won’t accept a scintilla of responsibility
Now, since you obviously missed it earlier, if these trials are really comparable to what the Nazis did (which they aren’t), then why aren’t you taking issue with the Doctors and pharmaceutical companies?
Ciaran, your attempts to deflect blame are growing ever more desperate. Have you any children? If a child of yours was in crèche, say, and was subjected to a vaccine trial without your permission as parent, would you still say “it was only a vaccine”?
The issue is not so much what was tested, it’s that vulnerable children were used as guinea pigs without parental knowledge or consent.
@Jane Travers
I wasn’t condoning the trials. I was just saying that there’s no evidence that harm was caused by the trials. The trials may not even have been against Irish law at the time.
Name one case where death or injury was caused by a vaccine trial. Go on!
I really would like to know who these medics were, who were they working for and what the financial benefits, if any, were.
It clearly states in the article that parental consent was given.
@Ciaran
Do you think we would ever be told of any deaths?
@Adele Sheehan
A doctor would have signed the death certificate. Therefore, it would be a matter of record and the public would have known of it by now. The onus is on the accuser to prove that the crime took place. The accused has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. That is how our legal system works.
Ciaran
That Is Not The Point.
If children weren’t harmed by these trials, that was good luck. They still shouldn’t have happened.
If these trials did happen, what other trials or experiments were these children used as guinea pigs for?
Cian, it states in the article that Sr Sarto SAID consent had been given. I don’t believe a word of it without evidence. Consent would have had to be in written form. Let them produce proof.
That the Irish nation “hid away” single mothers was an attempt to cleanse society and attain a perverted sense of whom we might have been without these people to ruin that sense of utopia. The doctors administering these vaccines were doing so to girls and women we know we’re malnourished and in very poor health so they might as well have been cutting them open. Also, I do not find it helpful to compere monsters, they are monsters full stop.
@Ciaran, you can’t know there is no evidence of foul play until an investigation, excavation and post mortem has been carried out in Tuam and any other sites around the country. If it takes hauling these pharma co’ before the courts for their files we should do that, the doctors who administered these drugs should also release any files. If this was any other country this would be happening already.
“Foul play” …….This is not a football match. These babies and mothers were treated in a most foul manner. No excuses.
I would love to know what Sister Sarto meant by ‘parental consent’. The same kind of consent that made them hand over their babies?
I take the point that you were not around….lucky you! But society has a duty of care and those that were around are complicit……doctors, priests, all those in attendance. And though you were not around, as I was not, we have a duty of investigation to ensure the truth is unearthed and maybe bring some of those responsible to justice….or at the very least bring to bare on the nation the blocks on which it was built. As little as two years ago the knowledge of this was ignored in government circles. If we fail to look at this issue what issues might we choose to ignore in the future?
Missing the point Ciarán,it’s not about deaths as such,but that trials were conducted on children,I don’t accept that the mothers gave consent,sure they weren’t even allowed breast-feed their children half the time,the nuns viewed them with contempt and they wouldn’t even have had the education to understand what the vaccines entailed,not even the pharmaceutical companies knew what the affects would be,hence the term trials. I thought catholics were hysterical about vaccines anyway?
I’d be very sceptical that parental consent was given, much less voluntarily given. And there is no excuse for that.
But some of the rhetoric here is a bit over the top. How do you think vaccines get tested? By praying for divine guidance? There’s an argument to be made that no parent should give consent on behalf of a child to participate in a clinical trial. But if you want to go down that road then it either means that everyone is a guinea pig when the drug is released, or you have no vaccine at all.
The aim here was to put an end to diseases like polio and diptheria. Whatever the ethics of the way they want about it, comparisons to Mengele are beyond silly.
They used vulnerable people as guinea pigs you silly man!
@George Grey
Foul play is a legal term used by police to refer to murder.
@George Grey
‘“Foul play” …….This is not a football match. These babies and mothers were treated in a most foul manner. No excuses.’
The term “foul play” has been used by police to refer to murder. Stop putting words in my mouth.
@Niamh Durcan
Just because a polio vaccination in the US went awry doesn’t prove that vaccine trials in Ireland caused death.
Ciaran, have you anything to say about 80 “Children and Mother’s home” babies and children having been mistakenly administered Tribovax, a cattle vaccine, instead of Trivax, under supervision of local doctors, nuns, Wellcome Pharmaceuticals – or Glaxosmithkline, as they are known today?
Ah Ciaran.. An absence of evidence doesn’t prove anything.. It’s quite a common theme with pharmaceutical trials, when things go wrong the information is suppressed. Don’t believe me? Ask Ben Goldacre, or Richard Smith, or John Ionnadis.
Lots of “evidence” has disappeared with regards these homes. And testing vaccines on children is not acceptable. Clinical trials are conducted on healthy adults capable of giving their own consent – that’s medical ethics 101.
But by all means, keep trying to deflect. It only increases the animosity against these institutions and their facilitators because they haven’t the moral fibre to stand up and take responsibility for their cruel and inhumane behaviour.
@Shanti
How do you know that the evidence even existed? The onus is on the accuser to prove guilt. The accused has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. That is how our legal system works. Being falsely accused can happen to anyone – that includes you and me. If the event of being accused, you don’t have to prove that you’re innocent.
There was no deflection on my part.
@Rupert McPupkin
I’ve just found the article on that.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/revealed-cow-vaccine-was-given-to-babies-26084978.html
“A six-month-old Dublin baby who supposedly received Trivax, but instead received the Tribovax T vaccine at a health clinic in the city, had a severe reaction, according to the documents seen by this newspaper. The child vomited for 24 hours.
Under the heading ‘Final Outcome’, the notation by the doctor who examined the baby reads simply ‘Injections Discontinued’.:
If the child had died or been left brain-damaged it probably would have been mentioned.
Ciarán- some of the trials consisted of the non-application of vaccines (including the BCG)- which resulted in a statistically significant cohort of adopted children with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis- at levels 14 times higher than the general population. The kids who were ring fenced from receiving BCG- probably aren’t even listed anywhere- nor has there been any tracking of their health issues down the years- other than curious comments from a few consultants acknowledging that the levels don’t have any other explanation. As for the vaccine trials- 2000 kids out there- have they been followed up on? Even fairly insignificant things, when you’re a helpless child, can have a disproportionately large effect on you in later life.
@Ciaran…before 3 weeks ago….. could you name one case of a mass grave of dumped babies, go on!, go on!, go on!…but bloody now you can
It is a case where death or injury was caused by a vaccine.
@Harry Byrne
The fact that the babies’ bodies were buried in mass graves is not proof that they were murdered. If doctors signed death certificates for the deceased then the burials were legal.
@Shane McCarrick
“Even fairly insignificant things, when you’re a helpless child, can have a disproportionately large effect on you in later life.”
Only if the child remembers what happened.
The burials weren’t legal.
They weren’t registered.
I have no right to be buried in my back garden – no matter how much I want to. These things are regulated.
It’s the fact that these children were not considered worthy of a proper burial that sparked outrage. And that notion comes directly from the church.
Now – this nun who says that there was parental consent – is it this Sister Sarto?
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-08-06/lifestyle/0308050263_1_convent-venice-film-festival-mother/2
The whole point of trials is to see if there would be any harm, they are just lucky that no harm (that wee know of) was caused. The most vulnerable in society were used as guinea pigs with those who clearly couldn’t f%£ks about them offering them up.
As Jane said earlier, if this happened to my son in the creche I’d go ballistic.
Even if consent was given, what option did these women and girls really have to refuse?
Here’s one for you Ciarán: there was a man in his 50s on Newstalk just after 9am this morning who is a survivor of Bessborough who has scars and holes all over his legs and arms. He was reunited with his mother years later who can remember him covered in bandages as a baby. That may not fit with your idea of damage but it sure made my blood boil.
Professors Meenan and Hillary of ucd amongst others
The doctors involved in this were motivated by money and nothing else. What they did was wrong and they knew it
Who cares if it wasn’t against the law, it wasn’t right. The Nazi’s done everything in according with their laws it didn’t make it right.
Sell the church lands
Liquidate the hypocrites
You got to love religious orders. Time to haul them before the courts in the hague for genocide.
I am not surprised but experimentation & misuse of vaccines didn’t stop there. In the 70′s post natal mothers were injected with contaminated blood products causing them to develop Hep C. Don’t forget the then Minister for Health Michael Noonan fought Mrs. Cole even on her death bed in relation to compensation & accountability yet we continue to elect him. Also Minister Reilly signed an indemnity allowing another drug company off the hook in relation to the swine flu jab. Even after the WHO went public stating that they created a false alarm in relation to the virus our HSE continued to inject our students with the jab & now we have to contend with victims of narcolepsy. The state didn’t care then & doesn’t care now, Nobody will ever be held accountable. What is worse we elect these individuals.
@Marion Murphy
“Don’t forget the then Minister for Health Michael Noonan fought Mrs. Cole even on her death bed in relation to compensation & accountability yet we continue to elect him.”
Given that the taxpayer foots the bill in these cases, the money wasn’t his to give without being ordered to do so by an independent authority, namely the judiciary. If he had given the money at the drop of a hat, it would have opened the floodgates and there would have been less money to spend on health and education and, therefore, children and other vulnerable people would have been punished for something that wasn’t their fault. Noonan was tactless in the way in which he dealt with the Bridget McCole case but he was more responsible with regard to public money than Fianna Fáil was. Bertie Ahern threw money around like it was confetti when he was Taoiseach. For example, there was no need to spend so much money on residential institutions redress. The problem with the redress scheme is that applicants only had to prove that they were residents of these institutions to get compensation even if there were not abused.
It’s autogenocide.
Wow Ciaran, you are one sick puppy.. You would begrudge redress to those who’s lives were ruined by your church?
@Shanti
I didn’t say that there should be no redress – just that the amount of money spent was excessive. The excessive amount spent serves to punish today’s children for something that isn’t their fault. Being a resident in an industrial school is not proof of being abused.
Well perhaps the church and the orders should have paid their fair share then?
If today’s youth having to foot the bill is such a big concern and all..
And funny how you speak of the excessive amounts spent. I knew a really sweet old man who was “abandoned” on the steps of a church (seems to be the standard story told to these children) because he was the “product of a rape”, something he was reminded of daily, he was dumped in an industrial school – and when the industrial school was closed he was passed from psychiatric hospital to psychiatric hospital – considering he was in an industrial “school” he was never even taught how to read or write – his entire life was stolen from him, and due to the obstacles that you seem to think don’t exist, he was even denied his redress – they held off and allowed him to die first. His redress goes back into the pot.
And the sick thing is, he’s not the only one. My friends mother is quite obviously suffering severe PTSD from her time in the laundries and she hasn’t seen a penny from the redress scheme yet, and guess what? She’s on her way out too.
@Shanti
So why don’t the former residents sue the religious orders? What’s the point in giving taxpayers’ money to former residents who are on the verge of death? As the old saying goes, you can’t take it with you.
Wow, I can’t believe you just said that..
These people are in their last years, there’s nursing homes to be paid for, medical expenses. And their entitlement to the state pension depends on their situation. Remember – some have never had a chance to go out and be gainfully employed.
But hey, they’re old – so I guess they don’t matter. The man I knew was being looked after by people who simply didn’t want to see him neglected – they took him in as one of their own. Which is more than the religious orders or the state ever did for him.
As for suing the most wealthy organisations in the state when you literally don’t have anything to your name.. Yeah, good luck with that..
Ciaran, It is false to suggest that anyone in an institution got money for just showing up. The money was awarded depending on the severity of the abuse suffered by the inmates of such institutions. As a taxpayer I was happy for some of my hard earned money compensated people who were treated as less than humans by the church and state. Is it all victims of the Catholic Church you have a problem with?
The Catholic Church and the nazi’s have a lot in common
Spot on.
These stories get more and more reminiscent of Treblinka and Auschwitz every day.
Yeah. They had a willing public, happy to accept they’re stance on ‘wrongdoers’ and sit back and do nothing.
*their
The Catholic Church believed the nazis to be immoral because they treated ‘illegitimate’ children the same as all children.
The Catholic Church are worse than the Nazi’s……they are the wolves in sheeps clothing that our lord warned us about…
That’s why they helped so many Nazis escape to Argentina via the Vatican rat lines after the war Jonathan. The catholic church looks after its own.
I take it the people who disliked my comment belong to the cult of the Catholic Church
Not necessarily. They might just take issue with your predictable hyperbole.
Or they might be outraged by your callous abuse of that apostrophe, which is actually very like what the nazis did to the umlaut
As American comedian Doug Stanhope remarked about Pope Benedict,instead of being shocked that the pope used to be a Nazi,people should have exclaimed ‘Oh my god,did you know that Nazi used to be a Pope?!’ After all,the Nazi’s were only doing their thing for a decade or so,whereas the RCC have been at it for centuries
Jonathan maybe it’s the narrow view you take on it firstly families encouraged people in to the church orders no calling to serve . Fathers mothers gran parents put these girls there to hide the shame the guards who knew and done nothing and government who turned their backs on the whole lot . Every family who put a poor young women into these homes are as culpable as church and state blame all or none .
My abuse of the apostrophe is indeed callous. My apologies.
Thank god for spell check, alas there is no apostrophe check
Yes and they did these things under the leadership and guidance of the Catholic Church. These people were catholic who carried out these crimes
But to blame church and not call out the rest is lying by omission . The whole country state church guards health service and the public need to be held as accountable . And as many here are equating it to the nazis obeying orders is not a defence . Every one is as to blame for this as the same low life animals that committed such horrible actions . We need an open full enquiry and consequences for those found to have committed the crimes I am in no way defending the church just making sure all those responsible are blamed . No point just affixing blame to one side . Facts are there do some research and don’t blame just one populist side .
Nazis were the SS.
As a military order of the Roman Catholic Church, the Knights of the Holy See (Nazi SS) are bestowed by the “infallible” legal orders of the Roman Pontiff on behalf of the Mother Church to wage constant Holy Inquisition against all heretics, including assassinations, torture and counter-intelligence, to protect the name of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and directly represent the interests of the Holy See as its primary order of Holy Knights– the SS (Sedes Sacrorum or Holy See).
http://one-evil.org/content/entities_organizations_nazi_ss.html
Typical divide and conquer as they controlled both sides and still do behind the scenes.
@Brendan Boyd
@Frank
The Catholic Church didn’t herd people into gas chambers.
No. They just pushed this notion that women who had sex out of wedlock were “fallen” and that their children were somehow less human than the rest of us “legitimate” children. Hence why they didn’t deserve a proper burial, or the right to stay with their own parents (which, funnily enough is the argument they use against marriage equality – apparently now they reckon children have the right to be raised by their biological parents and not be adopted).
@Shanti
“apparently now they reckon children have the right to be raised by their biological parents and not be adopted”
The Church has not turned against adoption. It simply believes that it is right that a child is brought up by a mother and a father. What’s wrong with that?!
@Michelle Mc Loughney
The public was unaware that widespread clerical sexual abuse was taking place until the Brendan Smyth case opened the floodgates.
Your mention of “a willing public” leads me to suspect that you’re in favour of collective punishment, which is a breach of international law.
Crimes against humanity. Yet these people run our schools..
Unfair comment. While schools may have a Catholic, Protestant, or non-denominational ethos, today they are managed by Boards of Management. These Boards consist of parent representatives, teacher representatives, community representatives and denominational representatives ( eg. In Catholic Primary Schools. – two Bishop’s representatives). Equating the past situations where no Boards of Managements existed with the modern situation where there is proper representation of all the stakeholders is unfair and wrong. Not appropriate to stigmatise present day with the distant past. By all means establish the facts of what happened in these “homes” but hold the people of that generation responsible for the deficiencies of that generation. Ensure that our modern day practices and protocols are robust enough to prevent and act as an efficient deterrent to such sorry events ever happening again.
Exactly Robbie. Get the bishops and their minions out of all schools. Boards of management my foot. All schools should be state schools. None of this catholic, protestant ,muslim school nonsense.
Michael, Ireland was also supposedly not run by the church and only had a Catholic ethos. In practice we all know that the country was in effect a theocracy and we can see the results of their moral guidance.
In our schools today the churches can discriminate against people and hide behind ethos while the taxpayer foots the bill. Religion has no place in our schools.
My 3 year old son started play school in January. He has now started saying grace before he eats.
No religion in schools?????
That’s terrible having a 3 yr old saying grace before meals, it’s like they’re being indoctrinated even at that young age. I’ll be looking for schools in the next while for my little man and one of my prerequisites for any schooling will be none of that happens. Similarly, I’ll be giving him free reign to opt out of any religious teaching. If the school don’t like that they can go f*ck themselves
Gemma, did you talk to the playschool about it? I had a similar experience where the playschool teacher “assumed” that parents would want their kids to learn “a little prayer”. When I made it clear that this was not acceptable to me, they stopped. Unless the playschool in question has an openly-declared catholic “ethos”, a quiet word should do the trick.
Sorry you’re totally wrong, the board of management don’t have to listen to parents they don’t have to listen to judges. They are like a private company you must go to the board of management no matter what. Even the Children’s ombudsman can’t do anything. The schools are a power who answer only to themselves.
There are good teachers and bad teachers but I have not heard of the good teachers doing anything about the bad teachers so that make them complicate. Only interested in their own pay and jobs unwilling or unable to do anything. They have the backup of the state their unions, board of managements parents have no backup. Legally it nearly impossible to get anyone to do anything about them unless it’s sexual. Nothing else seems to matter.
Your are legally forced to send your child to school to leave them there alone unguarded with someone who might not have their best interest at heart.
By how much did they profit from these tests?
Here’s more proof that the church, evil as it is/was was not alone in its abuse of these kids. I said before and I’ll say again, all is society was complicit, from the courts to the parents who put their daughters in these places.
All the kids who were forcibly adopted abroad needed passports. How did they get them without state collusion? The other elephant in the room is the long history in this country of infanticide . Before we had these homes unwanted babies were left to die, or murdered at birth.
It was a society adhering to the dogma of the Catholic Church cult
Maybe so Jonathan but that doesn’t excuse it. An inspector shut down the Cork home, on the spot. If he could make a stand why couldn’t others?
The Irish people let the church walk all over them and now we are letting a truly amateur government dictate to us. Fighting Irish my hole! This country is a kip! A useless nation of people we have become.
It certainly doesn’t excuse it
I disagree Dermot, I place the blame firmly at the feet of the Catholic Church, far moreso than society. Irish society was molded by the catholic church, – The Church exercised control at almost every level, from informing public discourse right into the private lives of the individidual.
The country was a Totalitarian Theocracy under the control of the church, and that is no exaggeration.
Alan following orders dogma or suggestions from any group doesn’t remove guilt the Irish people guards Dr’s religious orders and government hold all responsibility for this . We the people both forced people into these orders and into the care of these orders the government funded it and the guards turned blind eyes or returned the poor unfortunates back . Open your eyes and your mind and see who all the blame lies with . The church for all its sins didn’t go a round in vans to collect people of the street people were dropped of by family . Please research more and come to the facts based answer rather than the populist it’s all the churches fault. Many man made institutions failed and the great Irish public went along . We all hold blame there . Let’s fix the problem rather than shouting about the church being bad . Life has no simple answers you shouldn’t accept one .
how are vaccine trials “abuse”?
Wonder what other skeletons are in the closet.
Literally
A woman on radio this morning talking about her parents locking her away from the public when she was pregnant at 17, then off to the nuns when the baby was born, presumably with her parents knowledge if not their consent?
Of course with their consent. My grandmother went to the priest before anyone else. They decided together to hide these women away to have their children. Only parents who had the balls to defy society and the church kept their daughters safe. These women and were betrayed by society, their families and the church.
I will openly admit my paternal grandfather’s family defied the odds & welcomed my cousin into the world. No hidden adoption or ‘illegitimate’ baby either. However my maternal grandmother who is now 88 was to learn in her late 60′s that a neighbour was really her first cousin. Her uncle was the father of this woman & my grandmother never knew.
I found out last year that my Mother’s Mother was actually my Great Grandmother, my Aunt was my Grandmother and my Aunts and Uncles were my Grand Aunts and Grand Uncles. It took a bit to get my head around it. My Mother only found out herself when she got her birth cert for her marriage. She then kept it a secret for 60 years and I’ve no doubt it deeply affected her.
Look what the Catholic Church is doing today in the Philippines, it’s like Ireland 1950′s. Their Blocking contraception and pushing the poor into even further poverty. The Catholic Church only help the poor with strict conditions and why are so many Irish still getting married in churches even though many are not practicing Catholics?, tradition? Cause it looks good in pictures?
The catholic church is a big organisation, but it has been the cause of much suffering in Ireland since the foundation of the state. The early days of independence was about power!
The blame needs to be levied at the first Irish government who allowed the church the power it got and went along with the wishes of the church. Also successive governments who did nothing but line their own pockets.
I believe church and state must be seperate.
I also believe 99% of those in the church are good and would not harm anybody. The do a lot of good work they help a lot of poor people and they help people through troubled times. The churches power is gone and the position they hold today is where they should of been in 1921. The are a lot of good people in the church don’t confuse them with the 1%.
It is clear that like every other country the Catholic Church took advantage of the poor and uneducated. Furthermore, the Catholic Church partnered with the influential to manipulate society. In some ways, the Church provided some type of morality where none existed and supported those who would have otherwise been forgotten.
However, the Church benefitted more than the people they appeared to be helping. They were wealthy, influential and preoccupied with the future of their existence. The bottom line is they took advantage.
For this reason… Legislation must be put into place to publicly and clearly separate church and state. We must pull any religious edifices from public buildings. We must ensure that religion is a personal choice and not a requirement.
Then we must sue the church and liquidate any assets, such as property, and revert them to the state. Ireland is no longer a Catholic country. It’s now a country shared by many different religions.
Marlon, the state was complicit in all of the actions taken by the catholic (and protestant) churches. Do you propose to apportion 100% of the blame on one side only?
The problem with attempting to seize property assets from the Church is the Constitution. If the State attempted such a thing the Church would sue and it would win, win by too many millions for the State to afford. It will never happen unless we change the Constitution and that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
Ciaran, you are correct… The state was complicit in the acts against said children and mothers. However, the state will pay in some way regardless (i.e. Magdalene Laundries) of how we hold the Catholic and Protestant churches accountability.
Therefore, I believe the state should begin by changing legislation that will separate church and state. Then doggedly, go after the churches to get ample compensation through lands and property to support the state in the eventual compensations that will be paid and for an exhaustive costly investigation that should be completed.
Catherine…. You are correct from the stand-point of the people of Ireland. I’ve noted that any time I’ve mentioned that our constitution needs serious review and modification. Folks have taken it up as a direct insult upon them personally and an affront to the state.
The fact of the matter is that the minds that wrote and signed our original constitution were of a different mind set of a different time. The constitution was written by men working in a silo. Any subsequent modifications has only worked to open gaps for abuse, confusion and manipulation.
Therefore, I believe the best way forward is to rewrite a new constitution with the aid of the people of this country, experts and consultants from other nations. Once this has been done, we can retire our current constitution and hold it up as a wonderful historical document that permitted us to grow as a nation.
Marlon, the catholic church was legally separated from the state in 1973, 5th Constitutional amendment.
Would you also like to make the parents of the children sent to these institutions pay for their actions?
Catherine, the children that were sent to these places weren’t kidnapped by the nuns, on what grounds could you now seize assets?
Ciaran I was referring to Marlon’s comment about seizure of assets. Indeed it would be very difficult to do so under our Constitution even though the Church has still to compensate victims of abuse in other cases.
As to Tuam and other Mother and baby homes, unlike the Magdalene laundries, these were partly State run so it’s not as simple as grabbing land from the Church. A thorough criminal investigation is required here as well as addressing all the wrongs and attitudes of the past. Someone on RTE earlier (I forget who) suggested that we may need some kind of truth and reconciliation process involving families. Opening adoption files would also be critical. Letting the church off the hook however, is not an option.
Marlon I would love to see a review of the Constitution re. Property rights. It affects so many areas from rental control to discrimination to the issue we’re discussing. But it would be enormously complex and as you’ve pointed out, the Irish are pitifully conservative when it comes to change.
Profiteers of human suffering and misery. F*ck the RCC tio Hell!
Vile vile institution.
‘to Hell’
After the experiments carried out by Josef Menegel in Auswhitz the world was shocked and appalled. Now it emerges that it happened in Ireland, supposed to be a good catholic country….an island of saints and scholars? This country and its corrupt religious system should be outlawed and held accountable, but I dont think that will happen unless we as a nation do something about it. Every single day I find more and more reasons why I walked away from the RC church 35 years ago.
Heil Jeebus !
With all due respect and without condoning the new revelations I do not believe that Mengele’s “experiments” can be in any way compared to vaccine trials.
Nonetheless, on a smaller scale this is still being practised in the wide open public where children are vaccinated in schools, as in a case close to myself, without notification to the parent or their consent.
This country should be outlawed? How will that work?
Stop nitpicking Lorem, the country is the people who inhabit it, not just land.
Get them out of our schools and institute a comprehensive ehtics programme instead.
How can religious institutions be considered still today as the standard for morality? I wonder what will our children and grandchildren find out that the church was doing in the early 2000s.
There is no ending to the horrors that the religious institutions have forced upon the poor. Yes, the poor, don’t be fooled. The rich never ever had to suffer any of these abuses like the rest of us.
Spain had a RCC lead dictatorship for nearly 40 years and we are still recovering bodies from the roadsides while the executioners and torturers get their consecrated hosts every Sunday.
The church is evil. Pure evil.
almost 300, and more than 298. . .. so… 299 children? .. blue peter badge please
Lol, one would wonder about people writing these articles. Thanks for the giggle.
The pure cruelty of the nuns has never been investigated. They have refused to accept that they did these cruel things to those young girls and babies. The CC is one thing but these people refused painkillers to those young people as part of faith rehabilitation. Pure evil
Irish society went along with this. Most of the girls in these places were put their by their families.
They’re were a lot of rape victims in there too and if they didn’t get pregnant they ended up in insane asylums or mental homes for the rest of their lives. Irish society allowed this to happen, all irish citizens were complicit in this.
Its not so easy to say that. Thats like a sound bite from a politician blaming us the people on the financial crisis. In both incidence there is a power structure calling the shots. The church did it with fear, the government did it with lies. The traitor DeValera afforded the church far too much power! We are now seeing that abuse of power come to light. The church are a disgrace, anyone with half a brain can see through their lies and denials. They blamed child sex abuse on the devil infiltrating the church. Bullshit, wake up people. We are talking monkeys! All religion is a lie!
Everyday new news is issued concerning the horrible stories of the RC church in Ireland. The list of the atrocities must be long. Is it the tip of the iceberg?
Very much the tip of the iceberg I’d say. The death rates were higher in other homes than in the Tuam one.
That sound even worse than Communism in Poland which was different from the one in the Soviet Union, laxer giving more freedom. Kids were not abused by communists in our country. Obviously they wanted to indoctrinate everyone but most people found it a mockery.
There has been such a saying in Poland for many centuries (even when communists were in power) : “if you have a priest in your family, you will never die of hunger”. It means that the Catholic Church in Poland has always lived in abundance. Well, they (the clergy) were supposed to be poor and sharing everything they had with the poor and in need. That is another thing that has proved false.
The more I hear of these ‘Mother and Baby ‘ homes I more my blood goes cold. I became pregnant in 1986 and was heavily advised to travel to Dublin and give my baby up for adoption. Against all opposition I kept my baby and never regretted the decision. As well as the religious influences brought to bear on me at the time my family was concerned about ‘what the neighbours’ would think and indeed I was sneered upon and gossiped about by my so called neighbours and some friends. To think that the so called religious sector, the ‘moral compass’ of our country , treated this vulnerable women and their children worse than one would treat animals makes me view the whole catholic church as an contemptible organisation. To think How close my baby came to becoming a victim of these evil people makes me shudder !!!! I can only imagine the horror , guilt and hurt these new revelations have caused the mothers who choose to give up their babies , thinking they were giving them a better chance at life. All adoption records need to issued to those women and babies who entered these facilities to bring them peace of mind and give them some chance of healing their scars and pain. At the same time those who ran these so called ‘homes’ should be held accountable and made to pay for their crimes and those who stood back and knew what was happening in these homes and did nothing. are just as guilty. . My heart is breaking as I write this thinking of the hurt and despair these babies and their mothers suffered and are still suffering.
In 50 years time are our kids, grand kids going look back at the misery that is going on in irish society and wonder why we done nothing .
I agree with you Enda but the miseries they will look down upon is the failures of now also.
Exactly Enda. History is not going to be kind to the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the stuff that went on.
To all the “cultural catholics” out there – if your child turns around to you at some point in the future and asks you about the catholic church and the abuse scandals and now this mother and child home scandal, and asks you what you did about it, what are you going to tell them? Are you going to tell them, “Ah sure, we just went along with the flow”, or “Ah sure, it didn’t do US any harm”, or “Ah sure, we had to go along with it, because gran and grandad would’ve been very upset if we didn’t”.
@John Kelly
There is no such person as a “cultural Catholic” because Catholicism is a religious, not an ethnic, identity, whereas being Jewish is an ethnic, as well as a religious, identity. Therefore, there is such a person as a Jewish atheist. Catholics in Eastern Europe, including in Poland, were persecuted by communists, some of whom were Jewish atheists (Religious Jews were innocent because they, like people of other religions, were subject to persecution by communists).
At a time when 16% of Irish Catholics don’t believe in the Christian God http://www.catholicbishops.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Practice-and-Belief-among-Catholics-in-the-Republic-of-Ireland.pdf Catholicism is fast becoming an ethnic identity similar to Judaism, albeit without the genetic difference. There are atheist Catholics all around you.
I’m sickened to hear of the abuse that has gone on, my heart goes out to the mother’s of those children, more pain on top of the pain they are already carrying, unfortunately I’m sure that abuse and neglect is still widespread in our land of a thousand welcomes, prisons, Direct provisions centres to name a few, Sharon.
The people in direct provision aren’t our own therefore they’re not our ‘problem’. These women and their babies were Irish. They should have been cared for by Ireland.
Despicable comment, Tommy. They are human beings. Their origins are irrelevant to decent people.
Tommy, so your compassion is reserved only for those who are the same nationality as you? We’re all human beings, everyone is ‘our own’.
This country is sick.
That’s it, I’m ashamed to say I was ever pat of that evil.
http://atheism.about.com/od/ideasforatheistactivism/a/Excommunication.htm
Evil institution
Good link, eft. I was delighted to have defected when it was still possible, but I know a number of other people who didn’t do it in time. Getting excommunicated instead sounds like fun.
Parental “consent”? Am I REALLY supposed to believe this? Given all the recent revealations regarding these homes … (words again fail me)!
Parental consent :
“Sign this or your baby is off to America “
Parental consent given by the slave to the slave owner? yeah right
Religion ruined our chances of ever advancing
How dare the religious orders judge others when their “bible” tells them not to.
Damn Christians
There was very little Christianity in evidence.
Church and state- separate!!
Church and state- separate!!
There ain’t no difference between the church, state and pharmaceutical companies…,all complicit, all singing off the same hymn sheet.
Nazis did the same….
Mother and child home fatigue will set in very quickly. Perhaps we should also have a tribunal of inquiry into The Famine.
When a girl had a baby in the 70′s and a father was involved even if the father wanted the child’s name on the birth cert it wasn’t allowed because the parents were not married. This is an important point as all of the catholic propaganda being trotted out on RTE portrays the image of a girl deserted by the partner.
Susanna, that’s a red herring if ever I heard one. If the girls in question hadn’t been deserted by the father, they wouldn’t have ended up in mother and baby homes; they would have married instead.
Give over.
Wrong. Born in 1973 to an “unmarried mother” and my father’s name is on my birth cert.
yes because the father and mother had not contracted with the church to have “legal sex” so under patriarchy, the church owned the child.
Birth cert today means the child is bonded/enslaved and owned by the master state.
Baptismal cert means parents signed over their child’s soul to the Vatican boys.
Like they say, be careful what you contract into and do not think it is all innocent and sweet.
I’m a 1974 Bessborough (Bessboro) baby. How can I find out more information about the trials? I wasn’t aware they went on until October 1976 before this week. How would you find out if you were involved? Also- I don’t trust Sarto as far as I can throw her- I have gotten several different stories from her down the years- little true nuggets here and there- bizarre stories that have nothing whatsoever to do with me elsewhere. If she was the custodian of all our documents, our history- and is incapable/unwilling of divulging information to adopted people- what can we do? The HSE are at breaking point- and unable to give any resources to us- so we’re sort of abandoned, yet again.
Ireland-land of saints and scholars…what a joke…
Its about time the church no longer have any role in the running of this countries statutory bodies, ie schools etc
They are organizations based on formalized myths and have no more legitimacy than does the mickey mouse club and you wouldnt let the mickey mouse club be involved in running a school would you.
Its about time we, as humans, evolved to the post religious stage and started thinking for ourselves and not basing our moral code on some jewish guy who upset the romans and claimed his dad was a god. Anybody doing that today would be laughed at or become a 5 minute wonder on youtube
One child of 16 months was referred to as ‘ a congenital idiot ‘ by a doctor and the chlldren of the better classes apparently got a better price upon adoption. With this ingrained contempt for these children its hardly surprising that they were used as medical guinea pigs as well. What a bloody horrible little country.
PEOPLE THE VEIL IS BEING LIFTED
THIS IS A S8TANIC CULT end of
COMING TO A PRIMARY SCHOOL NEAR YOU,,,,,
there was some priest on Sean o Rourke this morning…. trying to move the blame on to the Irish family, well they supplied us with the children he said…then he finished off with the usual mumbo jumbo about the gospels that we should be following etc etc.. blah blah blah…are people still buying this crap
To be honest all of this stinks to high heaven (pardon the pun)…..it’s on a par with what the nazis did in the 30′s & 40′s and should be investigated as such.
All the sound bites from our so called leaders is just being seen to do something but not wanting to do anything…..Ireland, we are a pity
How was parental consent given ? In re: to these homes the women/girls were forced there mostly from their own families so even if fathers were known they were hardly seen or attended these homes to give consent? Maybe im wrong in re: children used for testing etc were all in ‘those’ homes anyhoo either way its fcukd up….jesus h its messed up little island we live on
It was the repeal of the corn laws Myles
Barbies?
I’m not religious but here’s something for the hypocrites.
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Matthew 18:1-4
He who is without sin A-Holes
Maybe keep that to yourself, or talk to a psychiatrist.
I’ve never conducted medical experiments on little children and neither has anyone with any morality or conscience, so yes about 99% of the world is without sin. The remaining 1% with sin are the monstrous amoral nuns and the paedos in black friends
Ah Kieran. You’ve clearly missed the issue here, this isn’t sin, this is downright evil…then again I guess it comes down to what your idea of sin is.
Good one, Kieran. Incredible that so many so-called catholic nuns and priests forgot that little nugget.
Jane. There are many instances of parents putting girls into institutions because they were not married despite the father of the baby being on the scene. AND on the first visit to hospital for a check up a girl wasn’t married she was directed to the social worker, despite being accompanied by the father to the appointment. The social workers first words ? ‘Obviously this child needs a good catholic upbringing’. So I guess you really don’t know what you’re taking about
Susanna, I disagree. If a girl “fell pregnant” the first and most desirable option was to get her married to the father as soon as possible. If the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if the father refused responsibility or was already married, it was off to a home with her. I don’t believe any family would choose this as a first option if marriage and a “legitimate” grandchild were a viable alternative.
I don’t understand what you disagree with. If the girl couldn’t or wouldn’t marry the father of her unborn my point is in the 70s the father was not allowed to put his name on the birth cert. I’ve heard if this happening where families sent girls to these homes to have their babies. Or do you think too that because a child is going for adoption the fathers name shouldn’t have been on the birth cert?
Susanna, as Carly Kelly points out in the thread where this discussion originated, you are wrong on that. She was born to unmarried parents in 1973 yet her father’s name is on the birth cert.
Jane, although I’m making no claim that this was a common case or even representative of a significant minority, here is a particular instance of a mother refusing to allow her son marry a girl he impregnated. It did happen.
But that’s precisely what I said, Brendan. My point was that it would be desirable for the pregnant girl’s family to get her married; but if the father couldn’t or wouldn’t oblige (as in the case you cite) I’m sure a mother and baby home was the last resort.
I hope they were lucky enough that the trials did not harm the children, who would now be 40-55 years old? Do we have this information dare I ask? :-/
Over the years i have heard many things about preists and nuns which have shaped the way in which i choose to live my life. I live my life without the rcc because it is my fundamental belief that the rcc and all other institutions are cults with the fundamental aim of accumilating money from fear. This mother and baby home scandal is just another example of this sort of bahavior. It does not matter what the times were or what the problems were in relation to poverty, nobody should be treated in this manner at any stage of life and most importantly children should receive the most delicate attention. As a father myself, i could not help but seeing my little two year old in this situation and it just made me shower even more love and affection on him as he is very special. To see how people could take something so pure and sistematically destroy that innocents through the obvious neglect of these children is in itself a violation of the geneva convention and it is how this should be treated which does not descriminate against religion, color or creed. It pains me to think that in a world that spouted the geneva convention throu wars and mass murder, irish people were violating these fundemantal rights that should have protected both women and children alike. It is my view that as today, our guardai, politicians and clerics are an absolute sham knowing full well they were all involved in destroying these human beings, hence this issue should be sent to the international court of human rights. There will be no action as a result of an enquiry hence the reason why diarmud martin wants one.
Today we are faced with a new type of abuse which is now all white collar orientated instgated by our banks, polititions, gardai and even down to our ambulance service. Our people are dying through the powers that be failing to act and the due careless playdown of these events. High taxes, crazy laws and poor services have taken the place of the religious orders resulting in new extortions. Are we going to have an enquiry in a few years about that too? Babies are still dying in the midlands hospitals even though they should not be….etc and the list goes on. The irish were always very good about getting angry about the past but not the present. I think we should write an appology to the Queen and ask her nicely can we come back as a dominion again because we are cirtanly incapable of running our own country. They also treated us better than we treated ourselves.
My son will not be going to a catholic school, id prefer to raise him honest and open.
Proudly ashamed to be referred to as catholic and irish. Dirty words.
I say ban the catholic church, an institution that has killed, maimed, raped and abused more people that the nazis
That picture looks like the photographer went out and bought several barbie dolls to place under the railing just to get a picture to sell
have your say