Survivors of a Protestant children's home where at least 200 babies and
infants died have been refused access to a state-run compensation fund
for a second time.
Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, whose department
oversees the redress board, said he would not reverse a decision by the
previous Government not to include the mother and child Bethany
institution.
A survivors' group, headed by Derek Leinster, accused
the minister of ignoring the specifics of the home run by Protestant
evangelicals and regurgitating tired excuses.
"Ruairi Quinn has
refused to address the then state's decision to regulate the
sectarianism of the welfare system, but not the actual welfare of
neglected and abandoned children," he said.
"Ruairi Quinn is condoning official sectarianism today in this Republic, as a result. Ruairi
Quinn has rejected not just Bethany survivors but his own party
colleagues Joe Costello and Kathleen Lynch who have been campaigning for
years on this issue."
The Bethany Survivors' Group represents people who had been infants in Rathgar home run between 1922 to 1972.
Mr
Quinn said the home was not included in the Residential Institutions
Redress Scheme by the Fianna Fail/Green coalition as it operated as a
mother and baby home.
He also insisted religious ethos was not one of the criteria used for inclusion in the scheme.
In
a statement the Department of Education said: "Having taken all the
circumstances into account, Minister Quinn has found no basis to revisit
this decision."