Sinn Féin spokesperson on Children Kathleen Funchion TD has criticised the Government for excluding thousands of survivors from its Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.

Teachta Funchion said:

“Minister O’Gorman has announced his intention to publish the Government’s redress plan for survivors of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes. It is immediately clear it has been designed to exclude rather than include.

“I want to make it very clear; I am strongly opposed to the exclusion of survivors who were resident in a Mother and Baby Institution for six months or less.

“I will wait to see the final Bill in the coming days, however if the Minister’s press statement is anything to go by little to none of the Children’s Committee recommendations have been taken into consideration. Nor has the recent intervention by UN Human Rights experts on ‘systemic racism’ faced by mixed-race people who were resident in institutions from the 1940s up to as late as the 1990s.

“It is estimated that 58,208 mothers and children passed through one of Ireland’s Mother and Baby homes, this is the total number of people who should be supported through any proposed redress scheme.

“A discriminatory payment structure and hierarchy of suffering does a great disservice to so many courageous women and men who have fought for so long to have their voices heard, and their egregious human rights abuses recognised and compensated.”