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EDUCATION MINISTER RUAIRÍ Quinn has said he broadly supports a call from the Archbishop of Dublin to have a “full-bodied investigation” into all mother-and-baby homes in Ireland.
It follows the recent controversy surrounding the deaths of almost 800 children at one of the homes in Tuam, Co Galway.
Speaking yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said there was “no point” in investigating solely this incident, as “it probably happened in other mother-and-baby homes around the country”.
He went on to call for an investigation that covered all homes.
Minister Quinn said he expected there would be “some form of an enquiry”, adding “the precise nature and structure of that remains to be decided”.
Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan said last week that a number of Government departments are carrying out a review to work out how best to investigate “the many questions raised regarding these deaths”.
It’s expected the process will lead to a statutory enquiry.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Quinn said that the facts on the Tuam case “should be brought together in a very coherent form”.
He also criticised some of the press coverage of the revelations regarding the County Galway home, saying some of the international coverage in particular had given a “very mistaken impression of what actually happened”.
“This has been known about and written about for quite some time,” Quinn said.
He said the suggestion, as has been reported in some outlets, that hundreds of “skeletons” were found at the site in Tuam “simply is not true”.
The deaths are recorded from the 1920s right through until that home closed, but the sensationalism and the manner in which it is reported I think is different to the facts that are known.
“Perhaps those facts should be brought together and presented in a very coherent way,” Quinn said.
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The Archbishop and also the Minister for Children were both informed about all of this two years ago, but called for nothing, and kept pretty quiet overall- It is interesting how things have changed recently, perhaps it is just co-incidental….
That may in fact be true Alan, how do you know it? That would be interestjng?
Because it was all over the news
Here you go (Newstalk interview with “Adoption Rights Now” re. informing the then Minister for Children, and then Archbishop):
About 9 minutes in, if you don’t care to listen to the full interview, though the whole segment is worth a listen…
http://www.newstalk.ie/player/podcasts/Lunchtime/Highlights_from_Lunchtime/55315/2/childrens_minister_didnt_do_anything_about_homes
and also Adoption Rights Alliance maintain they were sending material for some time, ( See http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0604/621550-tuam-grave/ )
Great , two clowns now trying to take the moral high ground, one from the government and one from the Catholic Church …like we really trust them !!!!
Of course, turn any crisis into an opportunity for yourself. “Don’t waste a good crisis”
‘
Oh stop complaining. If not one minister said a word you’d be crying about that.
Taken from boards.ie
If you want to reduce the Roman Catholic numbers in Ireland by opting out. Take action.
“I recently contacted my own diocese and received the following response
“The procedure regarding formally defecting from the faith is a simple one. Write to me with your relevant details: Name, Address, Date of Birth, Parents’ Names; Parish of Baptism. I will then process your request. I will contact the Parish Priest of the parish of your baptism and ask him to include an annotation regarding your defection in the baptismal records. Once I have received confirmation from the Parish Priest that he has recorded your formal defection from the Catholic Church in the Baptismal Register, I will forward a copy of your Baptismal Certificate carrying the annotation.”
I see what people are trying to do with these opt-outs, but the truth is no one ever signed a contract with this organisation – if you don’t want to be a catholic, you aren’t. Simple as that, don’t go to their meetings/masses, don’t give them cash or collections.
If you want to go by their rules – donate €10 to Marie Stopes and you are automatically ex-communicated. If you want to be official, send the receipt to a priest.
There is no need for approval from a church if you don’t want to be a member – no ‘leaving’ is required.
Unless you formally leave you will be counted amongst their members. Which has influence on educational planning (don’t get me started!) etc
I’d rather write the letter and be 100% sure!
“Defector” of course is the well chosen loaded word insinuating that you are breaking some kind of law, the same kind of law that operated in these “mother and child” homes.
Justin there was a website a few years back that was for this very purpose but the church changed canon law and the website was cancelled. The formal method of defection no longer exists because the church panicked at the numbers using it.
Yep. Countmeout.ie
The method above seems to have developed subsequently.
It’s an unfortunate truth that any good or ill undertaken by the church is done for all Catholics. Even if they don’t practice but were baptised by their well meaning parents.
Read Brighton Rock.
Justin, opting out from the Catholic Church should be available to anyone at any time that wants to, but that’s a separate issue. Lets not forget that the vast majority of these women were put into these homes by their own families. In my opinion, as someone born to a single mother in the 70′s, we should be very careful not to allow the fathers and families of these women to airbrush history to remove their own responsibilities for what happened to their own flesh and blood. People knew what was happening, they chose to ignore it and continued to inter these “fallen women” and their innocent children in these places.The church would not have provided a service that was not profitable or society did not use and the families/fathers should not be allowed to forget their own actions.
True Sam. I agree with everything you say. However, there has been a lot of talk. Action is required.
Mine is to count myself out.
Then I’ll do what I can to lobby for the truth. Btw I was born in Bessboro in the 70s to an amazing mother.
They won’t let you defect anymore. I did it a few years ago but then they changed the rules. You can excommunicate yourself tho, if it’s important to you, by breaking certain res which carry automatic excommunication.
Does it really matter if you are counted amongst the churches own numbers – surely it is the census results that matter in policy decisions? Of course if the census included a practising (every week) for the religions, then it would enable them to get a true picture of religion in Ireland, and set policy based on this (or do what other Germanic countries include as part of the tax options).
What is all this sh¡Te about Martin’s call. He called nothing. He jumped on the bandwagon when the scandal was too public to ignore, and now it looks like pols are basing their opinions on what some priest has to say. This country makes me sick to my stomach.
Which party was in power at the time.
Who asked the nuns to take the women into care?
Very true the role of the babies grandparents is often ignored
Fine Gael/ Labour coalition, Cosgrave Taoiseach, Corish Tanaiste and minister for Health & Social Welfare.
Sorry, Marty but you’re wrong. The bones in Tuam are of babies from 1920-1960. Labour and FG were not in coalition during all this time. FG didn’t exist until the 1930s although you can probably attribute Cumann na nGaedheal to them. Ireland didn’t have its first inter-party government until 1948 which was when Labour first entered government. Corish wasn’t Tánaiste until the 70s so I don’t know what you’re basing your assertion on that it was LAB and FG that asked the nuns to take the children into care.
Again The Journal spits out a headline that bears little resemblance to the article below. Martin spoke of a full bodied enquiry, Quinn is full of the usual political weasel words ‘some form’, ‘sensational reporting’.
It reminds me that in the Ireland of those years when we couldn’t rely on the Catholic Church to speak for the interests of the poor and underprivileged, neither did our journalists cover themselves in glory by speaking out for the less well off. But then, they didn’t buy newspapers or take out ads, did they.
Did you hear Quinn on the radio this morning? He explicitly said there needs to be an inquiry. He said that the terms of reference of that inquiry need to be established once all the evidence is broadly evaluated. It’s not simply a matter of looking into Tuam. Should you look at all the other Mother and Baby homes in the country for example? And what about the Magdalene laundries, particularly seeing as they’re refusing to co-operate with any compensation schemes? Or other state institutions? It’s not simply a case of saying let’s have an inquiry.
If there was ever a case NOT to have an inquiry, the advocacy of the politically wounded is very convincing. Who should conduct Quinn’s inquiry? SIPTU?
I would like to see immediate action not countless waffle and finger pointing…or are we going to put this out to tender to the highest bidder?…
Quinn says that there are not hundreds of skeletons in the Tuam mass grave. How the hell can he say that? Has he personaly exhumed the grave himself and counted the number? No he hasn’t. So he is bullshiting again. That’s all that he and his party of liars are capable of. Having the Catholic Church and this shower in government carry out an investigation is like asking the Nazi Party to investigate Belsen. An international impartial body should do so….not this pack of chancers.
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