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FOR THE BETHANY Home survivors, 2015 was a year of continuing to campaign for justice.
They had some good news in that they were included in the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes, but now they fear that all the survivors won’t live to see their experiences recognised.
In 2016, they want to finally see some movement on the investigation, one Bethany Home survivor, Derek Leinster, indicated. The commission has three years to do its work.
Leinster lives in the UK and was brought up in Northern Ireland, but spent some of his childhood at the Bethany home. His mother gave birth to him there and he said he was subject to neglect both there and after being sent to live with another family.
“We’re still pushing to have those people who have made their case, like the people in the Bethany Home, to be fast tracked because of their age,” said Leinster. “A lot of them are incredibly old, a lot are senile.”
Bethany Home was an evangelical protestant home in Rathgar, Dublin, which was for unmarried mothers.
Records show that around 227 children from the home were buried in unmarked graves in the Harolds Cross cemetery. A memorial stone for the dead children was erected in the cemetery in 2014.
Survivors say they were ill-treated at the home, and as a result have on-going medical and/or psychological needs. Recently, their story was shared in a French TV documentary which also covered the Tuam babies scandal.
“Our concern is the Bethany Home people are in the older [age] bracket and with what is being proposed, they didn’t get any justice in 2002, 2004 or 2005 – it is unlikely too many of them will be around to get justice with this,” said Leinster.
We have put to the minister that any survivor of any home who has sufficient and documentary evidence to make their case, that that evidence should be looked at and dealt with in a redress manner forthwith, rather than having to wait.
“It would be a crime not to give the Bethany Home people justice while they are still living,” said Leinster.
Preparing a case
Leinster and other Bethany survivors hope to bring their case to the European Court of Human Rights in 2016.
“We’ve prepared a case for that, and that will hopefully put further pressure on the government to do the right thing,” said Leinster.
Though the general election is imminent, Leinster said he had hope that something would be done before the next government comes into power.
The commission of investigation was set up by the government at the beginning of this year to examine Catholic and Protestant mother-and-baby homes between 1922 and the early 1990s.
Leinster described the news as “a huge step forward”, but said he believed it should have happened “a long time ago”.
‘Betrayed’
“I still have to recognise that it is some progress because up to now it is very difficult to raise the question of what happened to Protestant children in terms of redress,” he added. He said that he felt “betrayed” by the Church of Ireland because of how he was treated in the Bethany Home.
“We are hoping the commission will come out in our favour,” said Leinster. “Because of the information we have given them, there is no justified reason why we have to hang round for another two or three years before anybody comes to a conclusion. We are urging the commission to put that pressure on the government.”
Speaking in the Dáil earlier this year, Deputy Joe Costello said: “because many of the survivors… are now in their twilight years, it is important that we get it as right as possible on this occasion.”
“It’s certainly in the right direction, if it wasn’t for the fact of the clock,” said Leinster of the commission.
The Bethany Home survivors have launched a new website dedicated to their campaign.
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The solution is obvious….. arm the doctors and nurses…….
@Jonny:
Too many doors.
@Jonny: Don’t forget the patients….
@iohanx: Arm the doors with semtex duh.
@Jonny: don’t forget the candy stripers.
Sounds like a bad B movie!
(Hospital volunteers, also known as candy stripers in the United States)
@Jonny: Arm the teachers and post them in hospitals. That’ll show them.
@iohanx: Which were NOT LOCKED! Insane!
@Jonny: or maybe dogs with bees in their mouth, and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
@A$AP Ragnick: Release the robotic Richard Simmons.
@Colm de Cleir: and the dogs outside
Oh but guns don’t kill people….people do right. The circus continues. What a messed up country!
@Warren kennedy: Yeeeehaw. The only thing that can git a bad guy with a gun, is good guy with a gun… yeeeeehaw… tighten those stirrups and let me take you for a ride. Yeeeehaw. Banjo music yippee dee doo.
They are absolutely p@thetic.
@Warren kennedy: I cannot believe this is after happening in America!!
The land of the free nope the land of the scared going school, work or play not sure if you or loved ones get home alive.
@Mick McGuinness: I am sorry you feel that way.
Feel free to live in Ireland. On the other hand I immigrated and never regretted it. To each his own.
@Dermot N Killian: You’re literally one in millions. Who cares if you’re happy.
It was unclear what prompted the deadly assault….. its a shame people/teenagers can’t use their assault rifles responsibly
Shoulder shrug…
America makes money on selling guns to anyone
Another mass shooting in America? Must be Thursday.
@Colin B: Could be a Tuesday, or a Saturday… Note that since the one at Uvalde, there have been over twenty mass shootings (at least four people hit by gunfire in the same incident). Their society is lost to guns now.
4…surprised it made the news…any other country this would be a tragedy…Will be for the people involved but for most of America another day another shooting, just part of life. Somebody please hold a big mirror up to America!
@Damien Leen: my guess is that it’s because it’s in a hospital and came soon after the school shooting.
It really feels like the NRA has declared war on America….
We’ve been cooking up the zeros. We’ve been doing all the sums. The outcome of this court is, we need more guns.
Another tragedy in America. At one of the recent school ones , the gun nuts were saying it wouldn’t have happened if the teachers were armed in the schools – and then called for teachers to be armed in the schools.
.
This latest mass shooting was at a medical facility. What’s next? A call to arm the doctors and nurses too? Let not discriminate? Let’s also arm the receptionist at their desk. What’s their preference? A semi-automatic or sub-machine gun? Doctors and nurses in an operating room, strapped with their weapons?
.
When does the NRA/Republican craziness end? No – wait. It’s all the open doors fault, of course! There’s a free gun for everyone in the audience. Let’s liven up the Late Late show with such madness? No. When does it all end for America? In more unnecessary deaths – that’s sadly where!
.
* I make this post as NOT a fan of the Democrat party either!
@Jeff Rudd: it’s becoming like the old w6old west.. everyone armed … there will be duels next to settle disputes.
Only 4,chicken feed.not news worthy.
@Macus Mc Mahon: T’is practically good news.
The US Corporation lives on the sale of arms throughout the world and now the Irish ‘government’ and commentariat is willing to sign us up to the latest sales drive by the US’s Nato department.
@Bramley Hawthorne: any links to that?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Only this morning “This Morning” RTE1 Radio show, was going on about NATO. Yesterday in the paper’s, Leo was advocating that he can convince us to join yet another military setup.
All this comes after two recent polls (that’s he’s deliberate ignoring) exposing quite clearly that the mass majority of Ireland people do NOT want to join further mass military setups.
Only 4? Sure that’s nothing.
The 19th mass shooting since the Uvalde.
The American public are ‘getting high on their own supply’ of guns.
It would be ok for them to use the guns to kill lesser armed people in far countries – not
The only way that gun laws will ever change in the US is when some maniac with a semi automatic gun enters a parliamentary building and shoots a number of the legislators. Only then, will the message sink in that their gun laws are so so wrong.
@Kárl: a congressman was shot dead at a baseball game for politicians a few years back. Nothing changed. Nothing will ever change until they stop letting special interest groups like the NRA buy and elect lawmakers. The people clearly don’t have the will to bring them to talk.
If only there was a way to stop the madness.
I hear the next one will be less than a week away….. how bad is it that I’m not even wrong :(
Very simple answer, machine gun turrets at the entrance to every medical facility shooting anyone dead if they get within 50ft of the facility!
Who the hell left the doors open??? They should be locked up!
@Andrew Lavelle: the person, or the doors?
have your say