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

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 24 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

24 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

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

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5047171

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The cruelty meted out by mother-and-baby institutions is really difficult to comprehend. I commend all those who have spoken out and those who are here today. The reality is that women across the North were kept prisoners in secretive institutions that were largely controlled by religious orders. The Church and state authorities were fully aware of what was happening in those homes. There was collusion between the Churches and the state to impose a repressive, misogynistic regime on the population, especially women. Those who did not comply faced institutionalisation. Women were subjected to flagrant human rights abuses, arbitrary detention, forced labour, abuse and the removal and forced adoption of their babies. Children from the Traveller community and working-class women in particular were treated with cruelty and disdain. That should be emphasised and included in the debate. The children were branded illegitimate on birth and taken from their mothers. There was nothing wrong with those children and their mothers, but everything was wrong with the society into which they were born. Some were adopted without consent while others were raised in institutions only to face death from malnutrition and burial in mass graves. Survivors and their families, campaign groups and solicitors have highlighted multiple significant issues with the legislation as it stands. Workhouse victims have been excluded from the payments scheme. Foster care home survivors have also been left behind. Like the Member for North Belfast, I do not understand why there are limits, and I fear that that will create division amongst victims and survivors. The arbitrary cut-off date of September 2011 means that potentially thousands of prospective applicants will not be entitled to redress payments. I have already been contacted by people who feel let down by the cut-off date, and I am sure that other Members have been as well. As has been mentioned, the Bill details a £10,000 payment for each eligible person and a £2,000 payment for each eligible family member. I support comments made earlier in the debate about the importance of increasing payments in line with inflation, although the figures are not a true reflection of the harm done, to put it mildly. Money alone will not undo the decades of damage done by cruel institutional abuse, but, for many, it will be a small, formal recognition by the state of the trauma that mothers and their children went through. The junior Minister said that extending the eligibility date back to the 1920s would be "without precedent".

Respectfully, I say to the Minister — I hope that she will agree — that the scale of horrific institutional abuse was without precedent. The financial cost of the Bill is easily quantified, but the human cost is not. The drive to save money cannot override the needs of victims and survivors. It is also worth noting that, in recent days, £200 million has been found, seemingly down the back of a sofa, to fund the PSNI, so money should be found for victims and survivors.

The issues with the Bill are so significant that many victims are thinking of leaving the consultation forum. KRW Law, as many know, has called the Bill "unfit for purpose". Survivors need nothing less than full redress and a complete criminal investigation with transparency in its findings. As has been said, the lessons from the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 in the South must be learned. To be frank, I do not know whether they have been. Records must be made fully available to the public for the sake of basic transparency and accountability. It is time to go back to the drawing board and put victims and survivors, rather than the state's balance sheet, at the heart of the Bill. If that is not done, my party will table amendments to it.

635 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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