Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 February 2024
342. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to confirm the list of Mother and Baby Homes and any other State institutions that are included in the Redress Scheme, and to provide also a list of institutions that are not included; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4662/24]
View answerThe Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is designed to provide payments and other benefits to people who spent time in one or more of the Mother and Baby or County Home Institutions, that were identified by the Commission of Investigation as having a main function of providing sheltered and supervised ante and post-natal facilities to single mothers and their children.
The list of institutions – 44 in total - included in the Scheme is laid out in Schedule 1 of the legislation that underpins the Scheme, the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023.
The Government does not wish to disregard or diminish any person’s experience and recognises that there are people who suffered stigma, trauma and abuse in other institutions, and outside of institutions, who will not qualify for this Scheme.
If it were to come to light that an institution, in which the State had a regulatory or inspection function, fulfilled a similar function with regard to single women and their children as those included in the Scheme, section 49 of the Act provides that I may insert an additional institution into the Schedule.
