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Marianvale home in Newry PA

Report into Northern Ireland's mother and baby homes to be published today

Stormont’s leaders are facing calls to establish a public inquiry into the institutions.

A REPORT INTO the operation of institutions for women and babies in Northern Ireland is to be published later today.

The academic research on mother and baby homes and Magdalene Laundries will be considered by Stormont ministers this morning.

First Minister Arlene Foster is due to outline the findings to the Assembly this afternoon.

Prior to that, Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill are due to meet survivors at Stormont.

The region’s political leaders are already facing calls to establish a public inquiry into the institutions and those are likely to intensify after the release of the Stormont-commissioned research.

Amnesty International says there were more than a dozen mother and baby homes and Magdalene Laundry-type institutions in Northern Ireland, with the last one closing its doors as recently as 1990.

Some former residents of the homes, along with Amnesty, have been calling for a public inquiry since 2013.

Foster tweeted: “Conclusions will be examined. Comparisons will be made. However, the lives impacted must be foremost in our thoughts.”

A probe into similar institutions in the Irish Republic prompted an apology from Taoiseach Michael Martin.

Martin said former residents had been failed by the state.

‘Hellhole’

A woman who was sent to the Marianvale home in Newry after becoming pregnant at 17 described it as a “hellhole” and recounted a culture of shame and secrecy behind its doors.

She attributed depression, anxiety and physical symptoms she has suffered throughout her life to that experience and the forced secrecy around it.

Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland programme director of Amnesty International, said he believes the report will “shed new light on the appalling extent and vast scale of the suffering experienced by generations of women and girls in these institutions”.

“Amnesty has received allegations of arbitrary detention, forced labour, ill-treatment, and the removal and forced adoption of babies,” he said.

It’s time for ministers to listen to the survivors – both the women and girls forced into the homes and the children born there.

An inter-departmental working group on mother and baby homes, Magdalene Laundries and historical clerical abuse was set up in 2016 to look into the homes, which operated between 1922 and 1999.

These institutions were run across the region by both the Catholic orders and Protestant clergy. 

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    Mute Michael Flynn
    Favourite Michael Flynn
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    Jan 26th 2021, 11:45 AM

    Listening to people who went through the homes would produce enough information to prosecute. Unfortunately there are people in powerful positions in the North and South who still do not want this to happen.

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    Mute Jim Buckley Barrett
    Favourite Jim Buckley Barrett
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    Jan 26th 2021, 11:00 AM

    What use is an enquiry? We know that physical, mental and sexual abuse occurred in those places. Shouldn’t the Gardai in the Republic and the police in the North just open up an investigation to the most recently occurrences, where those people may still be a live and can be charged?

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    Mute Declan Gilsenan
    Favourite Declan Gilsenan
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    Jan 26th 2021, 11:35 AM

    The Magdalen Launderies were a substitute for prison for female minor offenders .Males went to reformatories or jail.

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    Mute Scott Cooper
    Favourite Scott Cooper
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    Jan 26th 2021, 2:33 PM

    Enquiries, invrstigations, reports, maybe of small consolation for those that suffered but until the perpetraters are charged n convicted for their crimes ( no chance imo) then it seems facile.

    I saw another Journal post where a man, quite rightly, is being charged for theft of collection boxes. He’s not above the law, but neither should the perpetraters of these far more evil & insidious crimes. I fail to see why the vast majority of these people are not tried in the courts.

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    Mute David Dineen
    Favourite David Dineen
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    Jan 26th 2021, 2:33 PM

    With the drip drip of abuse cases, reports we are reliving the pain everyday, it’s now time to hold a public led enquiry to vist every village and hear the stories of abuse be it magadelne laundries, industrial schools, reformatorys, and in the home, let these stories stand as testimonials to the horror that was unleashed in Ireland under the guise of “caring”, it’s time to listen to heal. A national day of remembering on the 21st of June, the day when light meets darkness and shines brightly… Dave, a suviour..

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