The religious order was one of eight that met with former minister for children Roderic O’Gorman, along with officials from his department and the State Claims Agency, for discussions on voluntary contributions to the redress scheme.
The meetings took place following the publication of the final report by the Commission of Inquiry into mother and baby homes in January 2021.
That five-year investigation examined 14 mother and baby homes and four county homes, and one of its recommendations was a financial package be established to compensate survivors.
The payment scheme, estimated to cost €800m, would benefit 34,000 survivors and was rolled out last year.
Now, Freedom of Information records show for the first time the lengthy negotiations and correspondence between the Department of Children and the eight religious orders who ran the homes.
In 2023, Sheila Nunan, a former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and former general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, was appointed by Government to engage with the congregations involved in the inquiry.
Her report delivered last April revealed only two out of the eight orders offered a financial contribution towards the cost of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.
The Sisters of Bon Secours, who ran the Tuam home, offered €12.97m — a sum deemed as “meaningful” and accepted by the Government.
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul offered a building to the Government, which FOI records released to the show is currently being used by the Department of Education for children deemed "at risk".
A third religious body — the Sisters of St John of God — did not contribute to the redress scheme and instead offered a donation of €75,000 to be used for a charitable purpose associated with mother and baby home survivors.
FOI records show that donation was offered under a series of strict conditions by the sisters, which stated:
The donation if accepted, is not being given as compensation as it is not accepted that the congregation are obliged to compensate for something that they did not do;
There is no evidence to indicate that the congregation participated in anything illegal, or untoward, so this would be a donation without any admission of liability;
Any publicity around the donation will be by agreement with the congregation;
If the congregation pay this money, a way needs to be found to protect the reputation and good work of the sisters, who did their best as employees at the County Home in Thomastown, and indeed the reputation of the Sisters of Saint John of Gods;
If the minister can find a way to do this, that satisfies the congregation, this donation will be given.
Minister for children Norma Foley declined the offer in a letter dated April 10, 2025, which said: “As your offer is not in the context of the payment scheme, this is a matter for your order to address itself and is not a matter for consideration by Government.”
In correspondence with the six orders who did not contribute to the scheme, including the Sisters of St John of God, the minister said: “I have publicly stated that I am disappointed by the approach adopted by organisations, and I do believe that more could and should have been done by way of offering contributions to the payment scheme.”
She went on to say the purpose of her letter is to “invite you to again consider the report and having reflected on its contents, to request you to take this opportunity to make a meaningful contribution towards the mother and baby institutions payment scheme.”
Correspondence received by the show a series of meetings took place with Ms Foley’s predecessor Roderic O’Gorman, where he asked the congregations to make a moral contribution to the scheme.
In the minutes of one meeting with the Sisters of St John of God on December 9, 2021, a spokesperson for the order said they “were not governors or managers of this county home”.
The meeting was told the order “had examined the commission’s report and statistical analysis provided with it and wished to make a number of overall comments”.
The spokesperson said “they acknowledge fully the awfulness of some of the stories that have come out of the mother and baby hones and the awfulness of how Irish society dealt with unmarried women and their children.
“It is not an era that anyone can be proud of,” she said.
“The sisters were employees responsible for the provision of nursing duties in the home, and this was the case throughout the period in question.
She said there was a “clear distinction here” and the Commission of Inquiry “is clear in setting out the roles of the governors, the managers and the inspectors in managing and monitoring the county homes”.
She went on to say: “There is no evidence that they [the sisters] did anything but their best within the situation in which they found themselves.
“Furthermore, there is no evidence or mention of mistreatment of or inappropriate behaviour by any of the sisters.”
The congregation operated the former workhouse at Thomastown in Co Kilkenny.
During the meeting, Mr O’Gorman was told:
The sisters operated under a judgmental, under-funded and strict regime, synonymous with the societal attitudes at the time;
Thomastown “was not a mother and baby home” and there was a “range of people eligible for care, not just single mothers and their children";
In 1923, those eligible for admission were categorised then as “aged and infirm, chronic invalids, children, expectant unmarried mothers, harmless lunatics, and idiots”.
The Commission of Inquiry report states it is clear the Thomastown Board actively segregated pregnant, married and single women, and limited access to maternity services on the basis of marital status;
Married women had exclusive access to maternity services at the Kilkenny Central Hospital, while the unmarried woman had to travel to Thomastown.
Another reference was also made during the meeting to the Commission of Inquiry report, which highlighted how “the board instructed the matron to threaten women with confinement if they did not comply with the rules of the home [and that there] is no evidence to suggest that the matron took such action”.
Of the 970 single expectant mothers admitted to Thomastown county home, there were three deaths recorded, none of which appeared to be childbirth-related, which is a “testament to the nursing and midwifery care that these mothers received”.
More than 50% of the mothers left the county home within 50 days of giving birth, and 80% left within six months, so those who stayed longer were in the minority, the minister was told.
The register for deaths also shows from 1919 to 1962, there were 764 births, 140 children died, and the cause of death in most cases was lack of food and nutrition.
The minister was also told at the meeting there were “challenges faced by the sisters in providing this care, and referenced the inspection reports in the commission’s final report.
The Commission of Inquiry report stated:
The nursery section was overcrowded and was the worst part of the institutions;
The lavatory accommodation was insufficient and insanitary;
The conditions and facilities in general were awful;
The children had to go through an open yard to get to their dormitories, subjecting them to serious illnesses given the available clothing.
The order’s spokesperson also said the institution was understaffed and a local government inspector recommended an additional nurse with midwifery qualifications be employed, “but the board refused to do so”.
“It is clear that many were taken advantage of and yet they were the ones literally left holding the baby,” she continued.
She said how these women were treated by the State, by the men involved and by society is “nothing short of a tragedy”.
The Commission of Inquiry report said the “children living in the home were adequality cared for” and that in 1962, “the overall standard of care provided in the home was quite satisfactory”.
The minister was also told at the meeting many of families of the mothers “had banished them into the county home, knowing perhaps the harshness of the system there, as this was seen as punishment for wrongdoing”.
The minutes show the spokesperson said: “It was a way of saving face for families who didn’t want to know/have anything to do with a so-called illegitimate child."
She referred to the report again, which “spells out in may places the role of the various State authorities in government the operations of the county home of Thomastown” and it was “clear that the congregations’ sisters were at the mercy of State authorities when trying to make improvements or in seeking to make conditions better”.
She said the congregation “does fully recognise the wrongs perpetrated on women and children in these institutions by society at-large at the time”.
Mr O’Gorman said “even though Thomastown was not a mother and baby home, the commission investigated mother and baby homes and a sample of county homes and made recommendations in respect of both".
He said “the role of responding to what happened cannot fall to the State alone. Survivors and the public need a collective response.”
The congregation said they had 98 sisters, with an average age of 81, and was charged “primarily with ensuring that these sisters are looked after as they live out the remainder of their lives”.
They offered a sum of €75,000 to a charity “in the spirit of woman and children who suffered in mother and baby homes and county homes across the country”, but with no admission of liability or to be seen as compensation.
This offer was declined by Norma Foley in April, who said it was “disappointing.”
Other correspondence dated April 14, 2025, showed the Government “has agreed to explore the proposal the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul made by way of a voluntary contribution to the scheme”.
The order said “We are willing to transfer our title to a property to the State without encumbrance.
“You have correctly noted that the property involved is currently in use by the Department of Education and subject to an informal leasing agreement for the purposes of a community based high-support school for children considered ‘at risk’."
In the minutes of a meeting between the Bons Secours nuns, who ran the Tuam home in Galway, and Roderic O’Gorman on January 13, 2021, the order said it had followed the Commission of Inquiry report and outcome and had a few questions — the first was why those who spent less than six months in an institution as children, and children who were ‘boarded out’, were not included the in the scheme.
The order asked if there was “any information on the breakdown of responsibility in terms of the roles of the county councils, the State and others”.
The minister was also told in the meeting the Bons Secours order “do not have records available to them, and asked how many surviving residents there are from the Tuam home”.
The order also confirmed it would contribute to the scheme and asked if it “might be possible to get numbers of surviving residents”.
Mr O’Gorman explained while the commission’s report touched on the issue of children being "boarded out" as an exit pathway from the institutions, the investigative role of the commission was in relation to time spent in mother and baby and county homes and the circumstances in these institutions.
He said his “point of focus was on a collective response” and “he was hoping to ascertain from the meetings with congregations if they are equally willing to take responsibility for their role”.
In a letter to the order dated April 30, 2025, a principal officer with the Mother and Baby Action Plant unit wrote to the nuns and said: “As Minister Foley indicated, the Government has accepted Ms Nunan’s recommendation concerning your willingness to make a voluntary contribution to the above scheme in the sum of €12.974,720”.