Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague Deputy Gannon who has very strongly and adeptly described the flaws and gaps in this legislation, and indeed the trauma still experienced by so many survivors in the State.

I want to talk about another group of men and women who deserve recognition and the support of the State but who have been completely ignored by it to date, namely the survivors of Westbank Orphanage, which operated in Greystones from the 1940s until the early 2000s. Up to 50 children lived there and they ranged from infants of a few months to teenagers. There were no staff and no guarantees of the welfare of children. It was stated by a survivor recently that there was no love there, only beatings. Many were sent to the orphanage from the Bethany Home on Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6. These children were told their parents did not love them and some were told their parents were dead. Others were told that they had no family left alive, despite that their very siblings were living in Westbank at the same time as them. Yet, others were put up for adoption and illegally adopted by families living abroad.

Children living in Westbank Orphanage were sent to work on farms in the summer. They were beaten with pokers and they describe beatings across the legs with electric flexes and having received injections, although they did not know what these were for. The descriptions of this abuse just go on and on.

Westbank Orphanage was excluded from the initial mother and baby homes redress scheme. However, the second interim report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters, published in 2016, states there is an argument that the orphanage should have been included in the residential institutions redress scheme.

There are recommendations in the final report of the Oireachtas joint committee, which states the institution payments scheme should be amended. Recommendation 21 explicitly states: "There may be other institutions not investigated by the Commission which were unfairly excluded from the scheme, for example, Westbank, to which attention was drawn in the 2nd Interim Report."

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Not only did these children who are now adults have to suffer that trauma but now the State is continuing to retraumatise them by ignoring them and not including them in any of the schemes or supports to which others are entitled. There is an opportunity to rectify that. I would ask, even through this Bill, to acknowledge those individuals and give them that assurance that they are being seen and heard because they really have not been to date. They say that justice delayed is justice denied but we have a chance here to right this wrong and to recognise the suffering of children and the immense impact this has had on them throughout their lives. I am hoping to bring forward an amendment to seek support for the survivors of Westbank in this Bill. I ask the Minister and Government to support that call.

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