The Green Party Minister, Roderic O’Gorman, has been forced to back down and process data access requests for records on Mother and Baby Homes.
This follows a huge wave of public pressure which led, at the last moment, to a change in ‘legal advice’. Before this O Gorman had tried to rush through a bill in the Dail without proper scrutiny. Now as a result of public anger, he has had to make concessions.
But a full victory has not yet been won because O’Gorman claims that those seeking records will have to undergo ‘two tests’. One states that a ‘restriction on access to information may be necessary and proportionate to safeguard the operation of Commissions of Investigation, and the future cooperation of witnesses’.
But this is a catch all-excuse that can be used by any Minister to restrict access.
More generally, the Irish state must be forced to open up all its records pertaining to Mother and Babies Homes. Let’s just take just one horrific example.
In his book, Banished Babies, Mike Milotte exposed how the Catholic Church was exporting ‘illegitimate babies’ to the United States in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. After the Second World War, Ireland gained a reputation where US servicemen and their spouses could obtain babies easily. There were babies available for adoption in the US but, in a racist atmosphere, there was a demand for ‘white’ babies with no danger of ‘coloured genes’ lurking in their DNA.
The Catholic Church engaged in this trade both for money – and to prevent these babies falling into the hands of Irish Protestants. In an unspeakable act of cruelty, the babies were often kept with their mothers for a year and then taken off them by the nuns.
The Irish state knew that all this was happening – and co-operated in the export of babies.
ALL the records on this scandalous activity must now be opened up. The Catholic Church should also be required to make their records available.
We need the truth and the whole truth. There must be no attempt to cover up the crimes of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael Ministers who colluded with the Bishops.
