Last night.
Tuam campaigner Breeda Murphy, adoptee and activist Eunan Duffy and lawyer, Frank Breheny joined us to discuss the latest developments with the Mother and Baby Home report and the institutional burials bill.
Breeda, Eunan and Frank are behind the Separation, Appropriation and Loss Initiative (SALI) and have drafted an alternative to the controversial ‘General Scheme of a Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill’. introduced in the wake of discoveries at Tuam.
This bill includes a provision to ‘dis-apply’ the obligations of a coroner to perform an inquest into any death within their district.
SALI’s The Institutions Recognised or Suspected Burial Grounds Bill 2021, which has been sent to every member of the Oireachtas, provides a ‘much wider set of obligations, to be addressed by local authorities and Ministers, and in particular, incorporating the the vital role that Irish Coroners must play in this work’
As Breeda says:
“We are reminded continuously of complexities on issues that have for decades proved elusive by the Government to solve or even impact positively upon. When one looks at them, the issues are not complex at all. In this particular case, captured in this proposed Bill, it is simple. There is a right way to do things and a wrong way and Governments have chosen the wrong way for reasons that are incomprehensible”.
This is the 18th in a series of shows with Breeda, Eunan and Frank on issues surrounding the Mother and Baby Home Report. You can watch them back here.
Campaigners are concerned by the Irish Government’s proposed Bill on Institutional Burials (SALI)
Bodger, you are doing good work on the Mothers and Baby Homes, thank you.
If one does not feel righteous anger at the treatment of these people and the cack-handed ducking and diving the government continues to be engaged in you would really have to be truly morally bankrupt.
Keep the good fight going!
It seems incredible that there should be any resistance to dealing once and for all with the issue in a dignified and satisfactory way but there is something about those in power which has so far ensured that almost every instance of political spin is directed away from that outcome… as though it is truly believed that if you spin it enough times it will just fuck off.. And that’s in spite of it being consistently shown to be going nowhere.. and rightly so, but it doesn’t matter much what I or any one person says.. the generation last passed through these services is only now coming into their own and will find greater voice on this issue as all those who have proven stubbornly resistant continue to lose pace with the direction of our times. You might force endless debts and hopeless aspirations for non existent capital down our throats but your church affiliations will fucking cost you every penny of remorse that you owe… and we do not accept remorse as a currency any longer… it means nothing
Top work broadsheet. I really appreciate how you’ve not let this story die, you’ve kept the spotlight on it, as you did on so many previous occasions, like with the Maurice McCabe story. It’s thankless journalism to a degree, because it doesn’t get as many clicks or comments – but imo, it’s the kind of journalism broadsheet does best.
Excellent work.
I know my previous post had cursing and so I will just say here that the defence of religious moralism is done .. no matter how they rub it… there is social justice and it doesn’t need or especially value the church and its inclination towards remorse… it’s not a perfect system itself but it won’t let this issue die .. no matter the will or wishes of powerful groups .. it is the credit of any independent journalism to appreciate the full extent of what this means…