Survivors of a Protestant children’s home in Dublin where at least
200 babies and infants died want their case included in a Government
review.
Former resident Derek Leinster has called on TDs to demand
Bethany Home is part of an investigation into the state’s involvement
in the Magdalene laundries.
The Bethany Survivors’ Group
represents people who were infants at the Rathgar home, which was run
between 1922 and 1972. It was recently refused access to a state-run
compensation fund for a second time
Senator Martin McAleese was
appointed to chair a committee that will report the state’s role in
alleged abuse at the Magdalene laundries, operated by four Catholic
religious orders.
Mr Leinster, who was in Bethany Home from
1941-45, wrote to TDs and Senator McAleese pleading that he extend his
remit to include the Protestant home.
“There are similarities with
the case put by successive governments in their refusal to add
Magdalene laundries and Bethany Home to the Schedule to the Redress
Act,” Mr Leinster wrote.
“It is to be hoped that you may be in position
to address that historic wrong, which is a continuing stain on the
reputation of Irish society.
“I ask you to review this material
and ask the ministers responsible to include Bethany Home within your
remit. State neglect of Bethany Home residents is also a stain on Irish
society.”
The Bethany group claims to have documents proving state
officials ignored evidence of neglect and record numbers of deaths in
the home in the late 1930s.
They also claim the state ordered the home
not to take in Catholic children.
Last year, the group, with the
help of Griffith College Dublin lecturer Niall Meehan, discovered 219
unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery, Harold’s Cross, of children
from the home.
Records show more than one third died in the five years
from 1935-39.