Clash over how many will receive mother and baby home redress

Executive Office Ministers and the chairwoman of their scrutiny committee have clashed over whether hundreds or thousands of people will receive redress for mother and baby homes.

More than 14,000 women and girls are thought to have passed through institutions, which were run by the Catholic Church, religious orders, some Protestant denominations, as well as the state.

Many were found to have been mistreated, held against their will and forced to give up their children for adoption.

The Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill is to establish a statutory public inquiry and a statutory redress scheme.

A payment of £10,000 is proposed to be made to eligible claimants and a £2,000 payment to eligible family members on behalf of a loved one who has died since September 29 2011.

The Executive Office Committee is currently scrutinising the Bill.

It has heard evidence criticising the proposed compensation payment, described as a “derisory sum”, which risks inflicting further harm on victims and survivors.

There have been calls for it to be doubled to £20,000.

There has also been criticism of the timeframes for eligibility to apply for redress, with a call to extend the timescale to include those admitted from 1922 onwards.

Junior Ministers Aisling Reilly (Sinn Fein) and Joanne Bunting (DUP) appeared before the committee on Wednesday.

Ms Reilly told MLAs that ministers are in “listening mode”.

She said a range of potential amendments are being considered, which include increasing support, additional assurance and increasing access to justice and trust.

Ms Bunting expressed disappointment that so far, Secretary of State Hilary Benn has not indicated government will contribute to the redress scheme.

She said the assumption at this stage is that the £80 million earmarked for the Bill will have to be funded by the Stormont Executive, whose budget is under pressure.

“I’m sure the committee will agree, that’s not a good position or a fair position but unfortunately it is where we’re at,” she said.

Talks remain ongoing with the former institutions to contribute.

Ms Bunting said they expect that more than 6,000 people will receive redress, including more than 4,000 people who were in institutions or their children and 2,000 claimants who could receive it on behalf of someone who has died.

Committee chairwoman Paula Bradshaw said she took issue with the estimated numbers to receive redress, and said she expects a nought to be removed from the figures suggested.

“We’ve spent years and well over a million pounds of public money doing research and taking oral testimony. How many people have come forward with oral testimony? It’s in the hundreds, you’re talking about thousands here. I would say that you could knock a nought off those thousands, it will be in the hundreds,” she said.

“I think that there will be nowhere near the figures that you are working off.

“Of course, we all are very well aware of the pressures on public finances at the minute, but I’m not here to guilt-trip anybody who feels that they should receive an acknowledgement payment through this redress scheme for the harm that they experienced at these institutions.”

Ms Bradshaw also said that the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry recommendations from 2017 still have not been fully delivered, with a memorial plaque still not installed.

“How can anybody take the Executive Office seriously in that space when it takes you nine years to put a plaque up on a wall in this building?”

“While I do welcome a lot of the proposed amendments, I think that you fall well short of actually listening with the same mode that we as a committee have to the victims and survivors.”