Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 June 2024
611. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide guidance on accessing the mother and baby homes redress scheme when the concluding year of an institution in the booklet does not match with the lived experience such as in a case (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24808/24]
View answerThe Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme provides financial payments and health supports to eligible people who spent time in Mother and Baby or County Home Institutions, that were identified by the Commission of Investigation as having a main function of providing sheltered and supervised ante and post-natal facilities to single mothers and their children. The institutions covered by the Payment Scheme are set out in Schedule 1 to the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act, which was signed into law on 11th July 2023.
The concluding years for the institutions covered by the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme were established, based on the evidence available to the Department at the time, that these concluding years, represented the last year that woman or children were admitted to these institutions, for reasons relating to the criteria for the Payment Scheme.
Subsection 49(4) of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act, provides that the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, can amend the concluding year, for existing institutions under the scheme, should evidence come to light, that necessitates this change.
I have asked my officials to engage with the Deputy in relation to the information provided in her question.
