SOME OF those born in the Protestant-run Bethany mother and baby home
in Dublin have given the Government a three-month deadline to include
them in a State redress scheme before they initiate legal proceedings.
They
are hoping to get an indication from Minister for Education Ruairí
Quinn today as to whether or not they qualify for compensation.
They
were given fresh hope when the department confirmed that it was
“considering their request” following a meeting with them last month.
Based
in Rathgar, the mother and baby home to which some women were referred
by the courts closed in 1972.
It came to public attention last year when
219 unmarked graves of children born there were discovered in Mount
Jerome Cemetery.
Derek Leinster, who was born at Bethany in 1941
and who has been campaigning for compensation for the past 14 years,
said he would not tolerate any more stalling by the Government as time
was running out.
The Government previously told him and others they
failed to qualify for redress because admission to Bethany was on a
voluntary basis and the State had no role with the institution.
Mr
Leinster, who is based in Rugby, Warwickshire, rejects this and insists
he has found all the evidence needed to prove those born at the Bethany
Home were legally entitled to be included on the Residential
Institutions Redress Board list.
The board was set up in 2002 to
compensate those who suffered abuse in residential institutions for
children for which the State had responsibility.
During his first
meeting with Mr Quinn last month, at which he gave the Minister a
deadline of tomorrow to come back with answers, Mr Leinster urged the
Minister to review evidence supplied to his predecessors of a cover-up
of death and serious illness at Bethany, while insisting that children
there were subjected to the same level of neglect and abuse as peers in
Catholic-run institutions.
“Because we’re Protestant and because
we are a minority, we have been ignored up to now,” he said.
He thought
that maybe a dozen of those born at Bethany would qualify for
compensation, which he said would be a pittance compared to the €1.2
billion paid out to Catholic survivors.
“We need to move on and be treated as equally as Catholics. The children of the nation were abused equally,” he said.
Survivors of five Protestant residential homes for children have been compensated by the State.