Debate contribution: Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Joanne Bunting on 19 May 2026.

MLA: Ms Joanne Bunting
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 19 May 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5549760

Text

As outlined by junior Minister Reilly previously, the Bill's Final Stage in June will be an opportunity to reflect on its wider importance. Today, our focus is on the amendments. Nevertheless, I, too, would like to take a moment to thank all those survivors who have participated in the process. I consider it a privilege to be involved in this important piece of legislation. Today is not simply another stage in the passage of a Bill; it is part of a long overdue reckoning with how this country failed some of its most vulnerable. The provisions before us speak to a deeply troubling chapter of our past and to the enduring impact on those who lived with secrecy, stigma and unanswered questions about who they were and where they came from. That uncertainty was, in itself, an injustice. In bringing forward the redress elements of the Bill, we must be clear: no financial payment can ever fully make up for the loss of identity, the disruption of lives or the years that have been taken. However, financial redress is, nevertheless, an important element of recognition, not only as outlined in the Bill but in a future individually assessed payment. For many, this moment has taken a lifetime. For some, it has come too late. We must approach this work with honesty about past failures and with care for those who still live with their consequences. There is nothing routine about this moment; it is deeply personal, and it demands seriousness, humility and compassion. Before I move on to the rest of my remarks, I wish to also thank the Committee for its constructive approach and for putting first the needs of victims and survivors. I also place on record my thanks to our officials for their work on this very important Bill. They were unrelenting in their efforts and worked diligently to get it right. Thank you to all of them too. There are many positive elements to debate today, but I will be honest: many difficult and emotive elements of the Bill remain. We have had to make compromises in many places to deliver the legislation in the fairest, most consistent and timely way. Obviously, redress is about much more than a financial redress scheme.
Redress already includes access to support and therapeutic services from the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS). We also know that other significant redress elements, such as memorialisation, will need to be thoughtfully considered with victims and survivors. We need to reflect on how best to do that in the right way and at the right time. That said, today is about the redress scheme.
I will now turn to the amendments in group 2, which relate to eligibility. There is a total of 13 amendments for debate in group 2, five of which were tabled by the Department, two by the Committee and six by MLAs. I will speak first to amendment Nos 25, 28 and 29. The Department has tabled amendments to clause 31(3) and (4) to clarify that eligibility for redress extends only to the children of women whose primary purpose for admission was to receive shelter and maintenance from an institution. In doing so, it is important to recognise the complex experiences associated with those institutions. Two of the mother-and-baby institutions listed for redress — Thorndale House and Malone Place — operated a private maternity service alongside their facility for unmarried women and girls. Those private maternity clinics were established for a different purpose, namely to generate income and provide medical services to anyone who could afford or wished to pay for them. The intention behind the amendments is therefore to draw a careful but necessary distinction between those who had no choice but to enter an institution for the purpose of shelter and maintenance and those — usually married private patients — who were admitted for maternity care in a medical setting. There are two different sets of circumstances, and only one falls within the scope and policy intent of the redress scheme. We fully recognise that some victims and survivors may not consider the term "shelter" to reflect their experience. It is important to acknowledge that perspective, but I use the term because that wording has precedent. The Government of Ireland use similar drafting in their legislation, in part to reflect the wide range of institutions involved, including those in which large numbers of births took place, such as county home infirmaries. We must ensure that the redress scheme remains focused on the women and children — now adults — who suffered the shame and stigma associated with admittance to a mother-and-baby institution, rather than on those who entered a private maternity setting for the purpose of giving birth and who generally returned home with their children shortly afterwards. The standardised payment was established to recognise the women and girls whose lives were affected by a system of institutions that imposed shame and stigma on them. Evidence in the Queen's University and Ulster University report shows that those admitted to institutions for unmarried women and girls were exposed to inappropriate physical labour during pregnancy, to judgemental and dismissive attitudes, to limited antenatal information and to an authoritarian and cold regime. Those are conditions to which those admitted solely for private maternity provision would not generally have been subject. It is therefore appropriate and right that redress remain focused on the women and their children — now adults — whom the scheme was designed to support and acknowledge. Amendment No 29 essentially closes a potential loophole that could have allowed a person who was born in a private maternity setting to claim redress. We ask the House to support the amendments. Amendment No 30 would allow an applicant to receive multiple payments. The standardised payment has been designed to ensure that victims and survivors can access redress in a timely and supported way, while acknowledging the impact of the institutional system as a whole. It reflects recommendations made by the truth recovery design panel and developed in collaboration with victims and survivors, who were clear that they wanted a standardised payment and wished to see it delivered without delay, rather than wait for the conclusion of a public inquiry. We listened carefully to those views, and the Executive are bringing forward a fair and balanced redress package of which the standardised payment is one important element. A standardised scheme must be just that, and the Bill provides for a single payment linked to admission to one or more of the relevant institutions. Importantly, that is not intended to suggest that each individual admission in itself constituted harm; rather, it recognises that all those admitted or whose mother was admitted were affected by the wider system that operated at the time. It acknowledges that undeserved shame and stigma were imposed on those women and girls at a time when they most needed care and understanding. We know that experiences will have varied significantly. Some individuals may have spent many years in a single institution, while others may have had multiple admissions, whether to the same institution or different institutions. There will be some victims and survivors who were born to a woman following her admission to an institution and then, later on, admitted as a birth mother themselves. It is a core principle of the scheme that no applicant's experience should be given greater weight than the experience of another and that the same payment is made to all eligible victims and survivors regardless of the number or duration of admissions. It would be neither proportionate nor in keeping with the intent of the scheme for the payment to increase simply on the basis of the number of admissions. The Bill also reflects an inclusive and practical approach to eligibility, recognising the varied ways in which individuals may have been connected to the institutions. Eligibility is framed to include those who were born following their mother's admission to an institution as well as those who were themselves admitted either as a child or an adult. That ensures that individuals are not excluded simply because they were born in a hospital setting and never physically entered a mother-and-baby institution or were admitted as a baby without their mother ever having been in such an institution. However, the drafting also means that there are circumstances where an individual could be eligible under subsections (2) and (4) when they were a baby — for example, being born following their mother's admission to an institution and then being admitted to that institution themselves shortly afterwards. The proposed amendment would risk creating a position where that same individual would become eligible for more than one payment even though the underlying experience is essentially the same. That would move the scheme away from providing a single standardised acknowledgement of the impact of the system as a whole.

1,480 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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