Call on Mayo County Council to offer apology over Tuam mother and baby home

An Mayo Oireachtas representative has called on Mayo County Council to unreservedly apologise for what happened in the past at the Tuam mother and baby home.

A special meeting by the council to discuss the final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is due take place tomorrow.

Senator Lisa Chambers said she was glad to see Galway County Council unreservedly apologise for its role as the governing local authority at the time for what happened in that facility.

The Castlebar-based representative elaborated: "Equally Mayo County Council needs to do the same.

"Simply because it managed to ship mothers and babies off to a different county does not absolve it of its responsibility in this regard.

"Certainly, questions remain to be answered."

Senator Chambers said Mayo's history is like that of any other county.

She stated: "Over the years many women were removed from their communities and families and put into these facilities.

"They were made to work for little or no remuneration and had their children taken from them. They were mistreated every minute they were there.

"The commission's report is a start, but it needs to be re-examined.

"I support the call for an independent review of the report.

"At the end of the day the lesson is that we must listen to survivors and their families. It is their views that matter, not ours.

"One of us saying that the report is good and fine does not cut it. If they are not happy with it, we need to redo it.

"I make a plea to the Minister for Children that the redress scheme put in place not be caught up in red tape and that people not be made to jump through hoops to access the compensation that is rightly theirs.

"It needs to be made as easy as possible to come through that scheme.

"Every effort must be made to facilitate people and we should not compound the hurt any longer.

"While no redress scheme or apology will ever fully heal the hurt that is there, let us not cause any more harm now when we know what we need to do to make this right."

Senator Chambers stated in the early 1900s mothers and babies were cared for in the county homes in Castlebar.

She elaborated: "In the 1920 the county home was home, if one can call it that, to women and children who were cast aside by their families and by society.

"I have since read that they were actually referred to in the Poor Law Commission as "inmates" in the county home.

"They were to be separated from other inmates who were referred to - those who were poor, sick and infirm.

"Discussions then ensued in the county home in the 1920s and 1930s as to where these inmates could be moved to that would not be a significant burden on ratepayers so that they would not have to pay too much to cover the cost of looking after them.

"It was actually suggested that they could be housed in derelict buildings.

"In the end it was decided to ship them off to the mother and baby home in Tuam. Women and children from Mayo who passed through the mother and baby home in Tuam are probably in that burial site."