'We are so angry and hurt, we will not stop until our mother's memory is honoured'

"In our house, Bessborough is a dirty word. It stands for lies, and deceit — attempts to bury the truth and the past."

I wrote those word four years ago, but now my family has a new dirty word — Redress.

The Mother and Baby Home Redress Scheme was set up to compensate the survivors of those institutions for all the pain and trauma they had suffered. You would imagine that such a scheme, which is meant to help heal the hurt caused to so many, would be deeply respectful in its dealings, sensitive in its approach, aware that it was peeling back years of trauma, poking old wounds. And that many of those applying are elderly and vulnerable. Think again. Nothing in fact could be further than the truth. 

In our experience, the scheme is overly bureaucratic, incompetent, and almost heartless in how it treats applicants.

Let me explain. 

Our mother Mary was born in Bessborough in 1935. She was still alive when the then taoiseach Micheál Martin apologised on behalf of the State to survivors and their families for 'profound and generational wrong'. That was January 2021. 

She was still alive when then minister Roderic O'Gorman said the State would put its hand in its pocket and offer redress to those men and women — an estimated 34,000 — who were still alive. That was November 2021. She was still alive as they dragged their heels setting up the scheme. An untold number of former residents died while waiting for the State to honour its promise. 

Our mother was one of them. She passed away in Marymount in June 2023, and the application process did not open until March 2024. However, as she was alive when Martin apologised, we, as her family, are entitled to apply. One of the last promises we made to her was that we would do it. But the experience has been awful — truly awful. So bad, we are grateful that she does not have to witness how she and her memory are being treated. 

Criteria for compensation

How can a scheme meant to help compensate men and women who were metaphorically (and literally in some cases) spat upon by Church and State be so bad? Maybe, the delay in getting the scheme off the ground should have sounded alarm bells. Or the fact that when it was announced who could apply, a whole swathe of people were excluded. People born in homes but who spent less than six months as residents.  People who had been 'boarded' out, despite many of them suffering abuse in these circumstances. People born in a home but who spent long spells in hospitals. They were told 'don't apply, you are getting nowt'.

We, however, met the criteria, and so we began our application via an online portal — which is less than user-friendly. There is also a postal option, and a phoneline — but given our experience, I can't imagine these to be any easier to navigate. The first hurdle for many survivors is that documents must be supplied, which is fair enough, but many survivors have little or no records of their time spent in homes. They may not be even sure of dates. 

We were different. Our mother's birth cert proves she was born in Bessborough. And we had a two-page file, which she got from Tusla in 2017 after seeking access to her records. We had no actual record of when she left the home, but she always believed she lived there for 6.5 years. She remembers leaving Bessborough in the summer before she turned 7, when she was handed over to a Cork couple. 

Bombshell

So to our calculations. She had spent roughly 2,400 days there. We were confident that the process would be relatively straightforward. After applying, there were numerous phone calls, emails, documents were mislaid and had to be re-sent. There were promises that 'someone would call us back'. We were told in September of this year that 'an offer of determination' could not yet be made and further investigation was needed.

So we waited. And then we got a phonecall in October to say an offer of determination had been made. This, in layman's terms, is where they count up the number of days a person spent in a mother and baby home, and offer you X amount. The offer of determination was sent by registered post. It didn't even have my mother's name on it. It was simply addressed to my sister with 'number of days spent in institution 237'.

Cue confused phonecalls between all of us. My mother was born in Bessborough on September 19, 1935. She was handed over to the Cork couple in May 1942. (There was no legal adoption in Ireland until 1952, so she was not 'adopted' by them, she was given to them). So how did the Redress scheme calculate 237 days? How had some nameless official in the redress scheme got it so wrong?

We could seek a review, but we decided first we better try and see if there was any more documentation. We put in an FoI request to Tusla. And we were floored by what we got back. There was about eight or nine pages - some of them scraps from parish books and the Sacred Heart files. Yes, our mother Mary Coss was born in Bessborough. But then she was 'nursed' out at six weeks old to a family called the Sullivans. (A sort of fostering system). There is a ledger which appears to show a series of payments — 5 shillings, 5 shillings, 5 shillings, as if she were a delivery of groceries. 

The records showed her mother, Mai Coss, was 'discharged' from Bessborough in April 1936, destination England'. So our grandmother had been stuck in that home for seven months after giving birth, while her baby had been 'nursed out' — a fact we hadn't known, and neither had our mother.

Then came the next bombshell — in December 1939, our mother was returned to Bessborough. Reason given? 'Mrs Sullivan's husband died' — so say the sketchy records.

So at the age of four, this little girl was sent back to live with nuns. Imagine finding that out about your parent or loved one — and in such a fashion? Imagine four-year-old Mary Coss' confusion, to go from a family into a cold-hearted institution? We don't know if the Sullivans were a good family or not, but given how warm and loving our mother was, we think they must have shown her love. 

The records then show a fact we knew, that in May 1942, she was sent to live with a family who lived on Cork's lower Oliver Plunkett St. So from the age of 4, until she was nearly seven, our mother's home was Bessborough. Her whole history had now been rewritten (and not for the first time).

To find this out was deeply upsetting, we now had knowledge about my mother's past she would never know. She obviously never remembered those years she lived with the Sullivan family. It must have been so traumatic going to Bessborough, and the three years spent there is what she remembered from her childhood

It is not the Redress Scheme's fault that we found out in this manner. Questions must be asked as to why my mother was never told this when she sought access to her records in 2017. These records clearly existed somewhere, they are not new — did someone just forget to check the attic? 

But where the Redress scheme can be faulted, is in what happens next. On the records it says — adopted May 12, 1936. We don't know why. But you could not be adopted in Ireland in 1936 — unless you were adopted abroad. Our mother didn't go abroad. It also says 'certain details added at a later stage'. So at some point someone — a sacred heart nun perhaps? — decided to 'clean up the records' by inserting that she had been adopted. And that is why, we think, whoever in the Redress Scheme determined her length of stay did a quick calculation and went — born September 19, adopted May 12, 1936 equals 237 days. Job done. 

We are assuming they probably just decided to ignore the places where it clearly states 'nursed out 6 weeks old, returned December 1939'. Yes, the records are confusing, but surely somebody in the redress scheme could have made the efforts to read them properly? Or sought help if they found them confusing.

We immediately sent all these records — which no doubt they also have access to — back to them, and politely pointed out that their calculations were incorrect, and could they please review the case?

Cue the next bombshell.

No, they couldn't. They said they had issued the original offer in June, even though we were told in September that the case was 'still being reviewed', and the letter didn't arrive to us by registered post until October. But no, you have 6 months to either accept an offer, or ask for a review, and we are, according to them, outside the six-months deadline. Never mind that it was an admin error on their part for failing to actually send out the offer in June. And we rang and pointed this out, and they said ok, you can have more time, but whoever said that on the phone, shouldn't have said that. And they are now saying we can't have more time.

Elderly survivors had to wait decades for an apology or acknowledgement from the State. They were promised redress, but then had to wait for that to be established. But elderly survivors, and their families, now have just six months to either accept an offer — or ask for a review. And it doesn't matter if the Redress Board made an  admin cock-up, and your letter is sitting somewhere. These are the rules apparently

While all of this was going on I went to see Small things like These, starring Cillian Murphy, about girls being incarcerated in a mother and baby home. It is set in the 1980s. 

I wanted to stand up in the packed cinema and shout 'this is still going on'. Ok, we may not be still locking pregnant girls away, but survivors and their families are still having to deal with the lies, and cover-ups, and the sense that some citizens are just not as equal as others.

It was bad enough to discover that our mother had been handed out at 6 weeks, and then sent back like an unwanted gift at four years old. That it appears, from the ledgers, that the couple she was given to in 1942 paid 40 shillings for her. That our grandmother was kept in Bessborough for 7 months, possibly against her will. That she may have been the one to try and adopt my mother when she went to England, but was denied. That while in Bessborough she was given a 'house name' — Evelyn.

All of that is difficult enough for a family that is still grieving, but the sheer incompetence of a scheme that is meant to offer 'redress' is really the tipping point

 And we are not alone. An estimated 34,000 people are eligible to apply, and to date 5,210 complete applications are either processing or being determined. To date, 4,818 Notices of Determination have been issued and 3,468 applicants have accepted the offer made to them from the Payment Scheme. We are probably counted among those 'offers made' — but ours is an incorrect offer.

Patricia Carey, who was appointed special advocate for mother and baby home survivors, was horrified but not surprised by how we have been treated. She says many applicants 'simply just give up', it all becomes too distressing. In a review of the scheme she engaged with more than 500 survivors and told of how it has “caused deep upset and distress, the further re-traumatisation of some survivors, and enforced a hierarchy of suffering of survivors according to arbitrary criteria”.

Next steps

So what happens next? Well, there is a complaints process, which we have asked to initiate. At some stage we hope someone with a little bit of sense, and compassion, will properly look at our mother's records, maybe even ring us to explain any gaps, talk it through. And when they have figured out just how long that little 4-year-old child spent in Bessborough, they then issue us with a new offer letter. And this time make sure her name — Mary Coss — is written on it.

In one way we regret ever having applied for redress, ever hearing that the scheme existed. But in another we are so angry and hurt we will not stop until our mother's memory is honoured. 

We have youth on our side. But so many of those out there don't. Imagine a frail survivor, in their 70s or 80s, trying to navigate this on their own. Maybe they have never told anyone their 'secret' so cannot ask for help.

One of the reasons given by the then minister Roderic O'Gorman to explain the delay in establishing the redress scheme was that they were aware of the sensitivities involved, the trauma of survivors, the grief and pain. They said 'they wanted to do it right'. Well, you haven't. Excuse my language, but you've made a balls of it.

We are writing this is the hope that someone in the Department of Children, which is responsible for this scheme, will read this and act. Reform how the whole thing operates, how it treats people. Put survivors front and centre of everything. Make it the positive it was meant to be, and not another dirty word.