Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar have been dubbed a “sickening double act” over their respective statements about the mother and baby homes scandal.

The Chair of the Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors (CMABS) has attacked them for not committing outright to a referendum on access over adoption records.

Paul Redmond also described what both men had to say as little more than “political waffle”.

And he dismissed the Commission’s report as being both “deeply flawed” and a “contradictory mess”, and questioned whether there was any point in survivors giving any of their testimonies in the first place.

For his part, the Taoiseach has stated the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report was one “all of Irish society” needed to address.

Dr Lorraine Grimes’s research has laid bare the trauma of women forced to enter mother and baby homes and give up their babies for adoption

The lives of women forced to enter mother and baby homes were often forever marred by the experience.

Many went on to build productive lives and loving families after their trauma, but many others did not.

Exhaustive research by an NUIG academic unearthed the stories of women and girls forced to flee to England in a bid to outrun the shame and stigma attached to unmarried motherhood.

Dr Lorraine Grimes worked part-time in a bar while studying for her master’s to fund flights to the UK, where she trawled archives and public records. She wanted to find out what happened to women abandoned and cast out from their people and place.

Dar es Salaam. Fifteen people were yesterday charged with recruiting and transporting disabled people from several parts of the country and subjecting them to involuntary street begging for personal gain.

At the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court, the accused were also charged with money laundering, failure to pay tax and causing a Sh31 million loss to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).

Those arrested include 71-year-old Dar es Salaam businessman Sadikiely Meta who is also alleged to be the owner of the guest house that was used to harbour the disabled people, most of them children.

The arraignment of the accused came two weeks after the deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for the disabled Ummy Nderiananga made an impromptu visit at various part of Dar es Salaam where she found disabled people being kept in guest houses by people allegedly using them for own gain.

Dar es Salaam and other major cities in the country have witnessed an extraordinary increase of people taking around disabled people on wheelchairs, particularly children with autism, for begging purposes.

Holt International is excited to announce that the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has awarded a $445,000 grant to help improve and modernize how Holt manages information about children in their global child sponsorship program. The new child management system is part of a larger technology modernization project at Holt International that will launch in July 2022.

“The Murdock Trust is helping to cover the cost of the new Child Management System (CMS), which is the system we use to capture important programmatic data, child information and progress about sponsored children in Holt programs around the world,” said Holt Vice President of Marketing and Development Rick Ericson, who has led the organization’s internal data conversion effort. “In addition to greater efficiencies for social workers and our staff overseas, the new CMS provides robust reporting capabilities for child sponsors here in the United States — a key to the financial health and growth of these programs overseas.”

Providing care, comfort, love, and support to vulnerable children is one of the most important responsibilities a community must shoulder. We are fortunate that organizations like Holt International work tirelessly to help connect loving families in the Pacific Northwest with children in need throughout the world.

Pauline Fong, program director, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust

Once operational, the new database will not only improve the quality of information that sponsors receive about the children they support — it will also provide a more efficient and effective system for Holt staff to gather information in the field, safeguard sensitive information about orphaned and vulnerable children, and strengthen Holt’s ability to report on the global impact of their programs. Ultimately, the new CMS will help protect the wellbeing of the thousands of children already in Holt programs and help grow Holt’s reach to thousands more children in need around the world.

The Sean Ross mother-and-baby home opened in Roscrea in 1931 and closed in 1969, and was among the homes run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

During that time, 6,414 women were admitted and 6,079 babies were born there.

One of them was Philomena Lee, whose son was forcibly taken from her and adopted to US parents in the 1950s. Her experience was turned into the award winning film, 'Philomena'.

Records show that the home was established for single mothers seeking assistance from Tipperary and mostly neighbouring counties of Laois, Kilkenny, Clare, Limerick and Kildare.

The average age of the women on admission was 22 and the majority of them gave birth in Sean Ross Abbey, with 5,665 (88.3%) doing so.

In an earlier article entitled "Citizenship for Adopted Children - A Malaysian Perspective [2013] 1 MLJ xiii", we described the story of a child who was given up for adoption by his biological parents and was subsequently adopted by Malaysian citizens. In the judicial review proceedings, the parents sought from the High Court declarations that the child is a Malaysian citizen pursuant to Section 1(a) and Section 1(e) of Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution. Lau Bee Lan J (now JCA) in Lee Chin Pon & Anor v Registrar-General of Births and Deaths, Malaysia [2010] (unreported) declared the child a citizen by operation of law.

Since the decision of Lee Chin Pon, a number of similar cases have been brought to the Courts with mixed results and inconsistent outcomes. In this article, we describe five cases in which the children (referred to as P, C, L, T and M to respect their privacy) sought judicial recognition of their citizenship by operation of law under Article 14 of the Federal Constitution. These matters originated in the High Court and were eventually set for joint hearings at the Federal Court.

Detailed submissions were prepared and filed in the Federal Court. Counsel were ready with oral arguments. However, after repeated adjournments, the appeals were ultimately settled when the Ministry of Home Affairs granted citizenship by registration under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution to the children. In the absence of a decision by the Federal Court on the merits of the novel issues, the uncertainty and inconsistencies in the law remain.

This article will start with a summary of the facts, issues and proceedings in the five cases. The arguments raised by parties in the written submissions filed in the Federal Court will also be set out. This article concludes with a description of the journey at the Federal Court leading to the amicable settlement of these matters.

In the matter of P (A Child)

TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN today delivered a landmark apology to survivors of mother and baby homes.

It comes following the publication of the report by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission following a five-year investigation.

Below is the full text of the Taoiseach’s apology:

It is the duty of a republic to be willing to hold itself to account. To be willing to confront hard truths – and accept parts of our history which are deeply uncomfortable.This detailed and highly painful report is a moment for us as a society to recognise a profound failure of empathy, understanding and basic humanity over a very lengthy period.Its production has been possible because of the depth of courage shown by all those who shared their personal experiences with the Commission.

The report gives survivors what they have been denied for so long: their voice, their individuality, their right to be acknowledged.

Hollywood star’s search for a baby brought focus on Irish adoptions

Publicity surrounding the Hollywood actor Jane Russell and her adoption of an Irish baby angered the then government because it portrayed Ireland as ‘exporting babies’ for the benefit of wealthy Americans who wanted children.

Russell was one of the most famous performers in the world when in November 1951 she adopted Thomas Kavanagh, a 15-month-old born to Irish parents in London.

The adoption almost scuppered her career and led to allegations in the international press that Irish institutions were effectively selling babies to the highest bidder.

Tommy’s mother, Florrie turned up at the Savoy Hotel in London after she heard Russell was looking to adopt an Irish child. The Irish authorities became involved when Russell publicly complained that British law did not allow her to take the child out of Britain, which had stopped the practice in 1948.

MANY CASES OF underage girls who became pregnant and were sent to mother and baby homes were not referred to Gardaí to investigate as statutory rape.

The long-awaited final report from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was published today. It called for survivors of the institutions to be given a State apology, redress and access to their birth information.

Although there are some cases of women reporting allegations of their rape to Gardaí cited in the Mother and Baby Home Commission report, it notes that “most of the mother and baby homes and county homes under investigation did not have a policy of reporting underage pregnancies to the Gardaí”.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that it was “striking” that in many cases where underage girls became pregnant, it was not referred to authorities at the time.

“Clearly statutory rape was involved,” he said at a press briefing this afternoon. “It’s just extraordinary that no one even thought for a second, it seems from personal testimonies, that these issues should be pursued.”

While adoption represents the possibility of creating a new happy family, it is no less difficult for some adopted children. This is the case of Brigitta, a young woman of 28 adopted at the age of two in Romania by French parents. But thanks to his perseverance and the work of the association "The way to us", she has achieved the unthinkable: to find her biological mother. http://lecheminjusquanous.com/