It is difficult to fathom how a government so eager to speak of “inclusion,” “equity,” and “reconciliation” continues to pursue a €26.2 million financial demand from the Legion of Mary — an organisation that, by every available measure, did more for Ireland’s most vulnerable women than the State itself ever dared to do.
The Regina Coeli Hostel, founded by Servant of God Frank Duff in 1930, was never a “mother and baby home” in the now-discredited institutional sense.
It was a place of last resort for women cast aside by society and, too often, by the State. It welcomed not just unmarried mothers, but also women fleeing violence, addiction, and homelessness.
It offered dignity, safety, and solidarity — and unlike the institutions rightly condemned in the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report, Regina Coeli allowed mothers to keep their babies and helped them build lives outside institutional walls.
Yet, despite the Commission of Investigation clearly stating that “redress does not arise” in this case, the Department of Children continues to pursue the Legion for millions it does not owe — and cannot reasonably be expected to pay — without collapsing its vital services.
This is not justice. It is scapegoating dressed up as collective accountability
The logic appears to be this: because Regina Coeli was named in the Commission’s report, it must be treated as equally culpable as institutions that were funded by the State, staffed by professionals, and involved in systemic abuse.
But that is not logic at all — it is guilt by association. And worse, it flies in the face of the Commission’s own findings.
Frank Duff and the lay volunteers of the Legion of Mary did not receive State funding. They were often undermined by the very officials who now seek compensation.
Historical records from the 1950s show that State departments viewed the hostel’s support for single mothers with suspicion, even hostility, branding such families “abnormal.”
The Legion stood alone in offering mercy where the State offered shame.
In recent years, Catholic organisations have rightly acknowledged where they failed and have paid the cost — financial and moral — where wrongdoing was proven.
But Regina Coeli is not such a case. What the Comission found was a hostel operating under extraordinary constraints, with volunteers doing the work without State support.
And now the State wants to seize their funds?
The attempt to extract €26.2 million from the Legion is not just bureaucratic overreach.
It is a fundamental violation of justice and charity.
The funds in question are not idle wealth. They sustain homelessness services today, which the Legion continues to operate in the spirit of its founder.
To strip these resources away because of an ideological fixation on uniformity is to rob the poor of the very help the State claims to defend.
The Church must not be silent. Nor should any citizen who values truth over optics. The State’s redress scheme must be focused on real wrongdoing, not symbolic gestures.
It must distinguish between institutions of abuse and those of mercy. It must uphold its own Commission’s conclusions.
The Legion of Mary has acted in good conscience. It has explained its refusal to participate in a process that contradicts established facts.
The independent negotiator — appointed by the State — concluded that no financial recommendation could be made against them. Still, the demand remains.
It is time for the Government to abandon this unjust pursuit, to publicly withdraw its demand, and to acknowledge what should never have been in question: that Regina Coeli was a sanctuary, not a scandal.
Let the truth — and not the headlines — guide our nation’s healing.