Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone

The Government has decided it is “not possible” to extend the institutional child abuse redress scheme to those who lived in mother and baby homes because of “huge financial implications to the state”.

The recommendation came from the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes’ second interim report, which was available eight months ago but only published yesterday.

The Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors (CMABS) said this morning:

We utterly reject Minister Katherine Zappone’s dishonest dismissal of the Inquiry’s strong recommendation of immediate Redress to an elderly and dying survivor community.

Minister Zappone’s refusal is immoral, repulsive and cold hearted at this time when it is clear that all this refusal does is kick the can down the road while waiting for more and more elderly survivors to die.

Clearly money means more to Zappone and this Government than any sense of common decency or morality.

The Governments behavior in hiding this vital report for several months is a national disgrace and their shameful decision to viciously refuse an Apology and Redress to an aging survivor community is a black mark on many of our politicians and Taoiseach Kenny, Minister Zappone and the Cabinet in particular; an immoral stain they will carry into the history books for all time.

CMABS again calls for an immediate meeting with the Taoiseach despite his previous snubs. Time is running out for us, our community is dying while Minister Zappone fiddles in her ivory towe …

Mother and baby homes’ redress ruled out by Cabinet (Conall Ó Fátharta, Irish Examiner)