12 January 2021
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is calling on government to ensure real and lasting justice for survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, including through inquests where appropriate. We also call for an investigation to examine the entire system of secret adoption and family separation, rather than just the 14 Mother and Baby Homes investigated in this report.
ICCL’s Head of Legal and Policy, Doireann Ansbro, said:
“We have known for some time that atrocious human rights abuses took place in Mother and Baby Homes which were funded by the State. The State has responsibility under human rights law to provide appropriate redress to survivors. Today’s report is an important step towards justice for all those who suffered in those institutions, but it is not the end of the process. There must be truth, accountability, and reparations, in addition to a state apology and appropriate memorialisation.”
The below are the human rights standards against which the government’s response to this report must be measured.
The State is obliged, under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to investigate all deaths which occur while people are in its care. Proper investigation of all deaths should include inquests into the deaths of children in state care where necessary to establish cause of death. The question of exhumation of the bodies discovered at Tuam and the opening of inquests into these deaths remains urgent.
The State must provide people with access to information about their identity, including a right to access their birth certificate. In 2019, survivors objected strenuously to the Adoption Information and Tracing Bill as it denied them this right. Their concerns must be taken on board now. Under the General Data Protection Regulation, all adopted persons have a right of access to information concerning their birth and early life. This must be reflected in any proposed legislation. All survivors must also be allowed appropriate access to their own transcripts and relevant administrative files held by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation.
The State is obliged to provide redress to the people who survived this appalling system of incarceration of women during the twentieth century. This includes appropriate healthcare and support and could include monetary compensation. In the implementation of any redress scheme, survivors must be centrally involved in the design of that scheme, and it must be delivered urgently – particularly with regard to the advanced age of many survivors.
The State is obliged to ensure violations of this kind can never happen again. With that in mind, ICCL calls once more for human rights compliant inspections of places of detention and the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture, alongside the ratification of the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances.
The leaking of this report to the media was a devastating breach of trust to survivors. If the Government wishes to regain their trust, it should now give voice to survivors by publishing the report of the Collaborative Forum of survivors, which it has suppressed up to this point.
ICCL wishes to extend our solidarity to all those who experienced, and continue to experience, rights violations at the hands of Church and State in the system of incarceration, family separation and forced adoption in twentieth century Ireland.
ENDS/
Notes for editors:
See also the Clann Project Briefing Note on the Mother and Baby Homes Commission Report here: http://clannproject.org/commission-report/
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights campaigning organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign to secure human rights for everyone in Ireland.
For comment: Doireann Ansbro, Head of Legal and Policy
For media queries: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie