Defunct Protestant care homes were included in the State redress
scheme for victims of child abuse because the Department of Health and
Children knew there would be no claims from them, newly obtained
documents reveal.
Emails between officials in the department in
the past decade, which have just come available to the Sunday
Independent, show that a number of Protestant care homes were included
because they knew there would be no claims from centres which "operated
in the 1800s".
The documentation released is part of a legal case that abuse victims are preparing to take against the State.
The emails date from 2003 when the then Fianna Fail-led
Government was under severe pressure to widen the scope of the clerical
abuse redress scheme which has now exceeded €1.36bn.
According to
documents released, officials included Mrs Smyly's Homes for
Necessitous Children on the grounds there would be no claims from those
institutions.
One official wrote to his colleague: "I would be inclined
to include them in the schedule as they were used as residential centres
for children. I think it is safe to assume that there will be no
applications for those centres which operated in the 1800s!"
Protestant
abuse victims at the former Bethany Home have said the revelation shows
a "highly cynical" move by officials to include defunct Protestant
homes for "purely optical reasons" while institutions that would have
resulted in claims to the State continue to be omitted.
Derek
Leinster, chairman of the Bethany Home Survivors Group, said the
documents showed clearly how their rights as citizens had continually
been denied by the State.
"Why were defunct homes like the Mrs
Smyly's Homes included when Bethany Home, which certainly qualified
under the State's own criteria for abuse, has been omitted and remains
outside the scheme today?" he said.
"It is a disgrace. All we want
is justice. The Catholic homes are all included yet Protestant homes
like Bethany remain ignored. Why?"
Responding to queries from the Sunday Independent, the Department of Education denied that Bethany Home was excluded from the redress scheme on religious grounds.
"Any
allegations that Bethany Home was excluded from the redress scheme on
religious grounds are not true. While the inclusion of Bethany Home was
considered, it was not included within the redress scheme," a
spokeswoman for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said.
"Minister
Quinn met with Bethany Survivors Group on May 24, 2011. He subsequently
reviewed the papers on the home, and having taken all the circumstances
into account found no basis to revisit the decision not to include the
home within the redress scheme."
Mr Leinster and other Bethany
Home survivors of abuse have also been critical of Church of Ireland
leaders over their response to their calls for compensation.
However, a spokesman for the Church of Ireland said Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson remains supportive of their efforts.
"Archbishop Jackson met a number of former residents of Bethany Home shortly after taking up office," he said. "The
archbishop expressed his concern for former residents and relayed that
he had written to the Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn encouraging
him to re-examine as a matter of urgency the group's appeal to include
Bethany Home in the State redress scheme. Archbishop Jackson continues
to be supportive of the Bethany Home Survivors Group's efforts."