LONDON (AP) – The Prime Minister of Ireland on Wednesday offered an official state apology to the thousands of unmarried women and their children who endured pain, shame and stigma at church institutions, saying his government was committed to to correct the country’s mistakes.
Prime Minister Micheal Martin’s apology came a day after the final report of an investigation said 9,000 children died in 18 mother-and-baby homes – home to women and girls who conceived out of wedlock – in the 20th century. The investigation was part of a settlement process in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland, where ecclesiastical institutions were often linked to a history of abuse.
Martin said Ireland should recognize the scandal as part of its national history and “show our deep remorse”. He apologized on behalf of his government for the “profound and generational disparity” with which mothers and their babies ended up in the institutions.
“They shouldn’t have been there,” he said in the Irish Parliament. “The state has forsaken you mothers and children in these houses.”
Martin said it was very disturbing that authorities at the time were aware of the very high mortality rate in the houses, but it did not appear to have intervened. According to the report, 15% of all children in the homes died from illnesses and infections such as stomach flu, almost double the child mortality rate nationwide.
Martin added, “We must learn the lesson that institutionalization creates power structures and abuse of power and should never again be an option for our country in any circumstances.”
Church-run houses in Ireland have housed orphans, unmarried pregnant women, and their babies for most of the 20th century. The mothers were abandoned and hidden by their families in shame, and many of the children were separated from their mothers for adoption.
The institutions came under intense scrutiny after historian Catherine Corless tracked down the death certificates of nearly 800 children who died in a mother-and-baby home in Western Ireland in 2014 – but was only able to find a burial record for one child.
Investigators later found a mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children in an underground sewerage structure in the grounds of the home, which was managed by an order from Catholic nuns and closed in 1961.
The commission of inquiry said that about 56,000 unmarried mothers and about 57,000 children had lived in the homes it investigated. Most were admitted in the 1960s and early 1970s.