Bethany Home Memorial

Published: Monday, April 14, 2014

National Women's Council of Ireland attended a ceremony on April 2 2014 where monument was unveiled to the 222 children who died at a Protestant children’s home and were buried in unmarked graves.

While the Department of Justice offered bethany survivors money toward the memorial, to date these survivors have been excluded from both the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme and the Magdalene Redress Scheme (despite initial indications, that the Bethany Home may be considered for inclusion in the latter scheme). This leaves them in a state of vulnerability, uncertainty and in many cases poverty.

We will continue to call on the Taoiseach, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that justice is served to the survivors of the Bethany home and that the state affords them the peace and security that they deserve in these, their older years. There must be a process of non-adversarial redress put in place without delay, as well as providing assistance to survivors in their attempts to access to their records.