Bethany Home must be included in Residential Institutional Redress Scheme
Posted on September 13, 2010 at 12:02 PM
Addressing the Press Conference at Buswells Hotel today about the latest disturbing discoveries by researchers examining Bethany Home, Deputy Costello said, “The Government can no longer stand idly by in the face of new revelations about the appalling conditions and the startling number of deaths of children that occurred in Bethany Home in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
“Bethany Home must now be included in the Residential Institutional Redress Scheme and a suitable memorial must be erected to the memory of the 219 children who died there and to the memory of those who were abused there but survived.
“Despite continual calls The Department of Education has refused again and again to allow Bethany Home, an Evangelical Protestant Institution in Rathgar, Dublin 6 (1921-1972), to be included in the list of qualifying Institutions for the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme set up in 2002.
“Thus the survivors of Bethany Home have been deprived of the opportunity of having their case heard and of obtaining some justice and redress for the abuse they suffered as young, innocent and vulnerable children.
“In recent times some tenacious survivors and dedicated researchers have begun to piece together the grim picture of what happened in Bethany Home over the decades.
“The hard work of these people has uncovered new startling information that Bethany Home was a place of detention and that the State deliberately ignored warnings from its own Maternity and Children's Act inspectors about medical neglect in Bethany Home.
“The Government's objections to placing Bethany Home on the schedule of the Redress scheme for victims of institutional abuse are now totally undermined. The government must do the decent thing and end this outrage.”
