Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Welcome, ladies. We have here Adele Johnstone and Barbara McCann from Birth Mothers and their Children Together. Thank you so much for your submissions and for everything that you have done to this point to support the Committee in gathering the evidence that we need. I invite you to make some opening remarks, and then we will open it up for questions.

Ms Adele Johnstone (Birth Mothers and their Children Together): Good afternoon, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen. Birth Mothers and their Children Together represents a group of birth mothers and their adopted or foster children who are now adults. We also have birth mothers who were able to get their children back from foster care and some descendants of birth mothers who are now deceased. We may have very different lived experiences, but we have a common goal, which is to achieve truth, justice and acknowledgement of what happened to us and our loved ones.

The Bill falls well short of our expectations and the recommendations of the 'Truth, Acknowledgement and Accountability' report of October 2021. The recommendations were accepted in full by the then First Minister and deputy First Minister, Paul Givan and Michelle O'Neill, at the Stormont Hotel, where we were present. We endured months of meetings and questionnaires, bared our souls in giving our testimonies to the independent panel and engaged with the public consultation, only to be herded into a room and dealt one body blow after another when the Bill was introduced.

It appeared that we had not been listened to. The Bill seemed to be based more on cost-cutting than on implementing the hard-fought-for recommendations of the 'Truth, Acknowledgement and Accountability' report. We have not been listened to throughout the process, and there is no acknowledgement of the state-sanctioned hurt and abuse that we all suffered.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you very much, and, again, thank you for putting all that in writing. I will pick up on a couple of points that you made in your submission, Adele, about the posthumous date. Will you talk about the impact that seeing that date in the Bill had on your group? Do you have any proposals for what the date should be?

Ms Johnstone: The proposed date of 29 September 2011 is an arbitrary date that is tied completely to the unrelated historical institutional abuse inquiry. That inquiry excluded us on the basis of age: the under-fives and the over-18s were disbarred. There is no rational justification for that date. We view it as cost-cutting. As a group, we have looked at other ramifications. Some people would like to stick to the date of 1922, but a few of us have looked at the Ministry of Home Affairs Children and Young Persons (Voluntary Homes) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1952. The 'Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland, 1922-1990' report of January 2021 pointed out that, in 1984, it came to light that Marianville, Belfast:

Once that was flagged up, the Mother Superior of the Good Shepherd convent in Belfast designated herself as a "visitor". I am afraid that that smacks of the fox guarding the henhouse. It is totally unacceptable. The 2021 report further states:

and a clear dereliction of duty. Legal advice suggests that that could be challenged by litigation on equality grounds.

That is our view of the date. We are not happy about it at all. The impact of it is that our loved ones have been struck out at the stroke of a pen. Their pain and suffering from what happened to them counts for nothing. OK, there can be other forms of acknowledgement, but, to strike them off is cruel, callous and not very nice.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you, Adele. I am not sure whether you caught the tail end of the session with the previous panel, but the point was made that people are coming at this process from different angles: truth, accountability, acknowledgement etc. In your submission, you said that the £10,000 standardised payment should really be £15,000 to reflect the cost of living, inflation and, in many cases, the loss of winter fuel payments. Why is acknowledgement through the redress payment important to you, and why do you think that it should be more than the HIA recommended?

Ms Johnstone: It was nine or 10 years ago that HIA acknowledged that need and that figure was set down. A lot of things have changed since then. A lot of our members, as well as people who belong to other groups or do not belong to groups, are in the older age category. To have a sum of money that they can put towards having a wee bit of comfort in their old age is very important. It may be important for them to have it even so that they can put a gravestone on their loved one's grave, because it acknowledges that those people existed.

Yes, an argument can be made for the individually assessed payment, but, given the age and the health of a lot of our people, that will not happen for some of them. I am 73. If I were to go through the process, it could last five to seven years. Realistically, am I going to start to go through a psychological assessment? Am I going to put myself through that? By that time, I could have dementia or be in a home. I do not know — hopefully, I will not be. At the moment, I am quite compos mentis, but that might not continue. Those are the people whom we are speaking for: those who cannot come forward. At the weekend, I spoke to one adoptee whose birth mother is going through terminal cancer. She will not be around to have an individual assessment. She needs a little bit of help now. That is why I feel that it really should be pushed and that that sum should be amended.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thank you. Before I bring in the Deputy Chair, I have a quick question about "relevant persons" for the purpose of the public inquiry. It is about the importance of hearing the man's — the father's — voice at the public inquiry stage. In many cases, the father's name was put as "unknown" on the birth certificate. Do you have any views on whether they should be given more prominence? Are there any other groups of relevant persons who you feel that the Bill does not cover?

Ms Johnstone: That is a rather difficult question for me personally.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): OK. Sorry.

Ms Johnstone: The father of my child ran to the hills and was never seen again, so I definitely do not want him to have any prominence. I know that some men tried to step forward but, unfortunately, could not. I do not feel that I am in a position to answer that.

When it comes to other relevant persons, I think that the situations of women who were in a place other than a mother-and-baby institution and gave birth to a child there need to be taken on a case-by-case basis. That needs to be looked at further rather than those cases being arbitrarily dismissed because they were in a private nursing home or another place. Those children were taken, and there was a clear pathway through to children's homes that are not even mentioned in the Bill. We are very annoyed about the fact that those places are not listed. We want St Joseph's baby home, Conneywarren children's home and Nazareth House to be listed in the Bill. That is causing a lot of distress among my colleagues. We were away at the weekend, and it was a big topic of discussion.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I will hand over to the Deputy Chair, because I know that he is interested in that issue.

Mr Dickson: I have been asking this of everybody who has attended Committee today. We need help from you and all the organisations to identify those additional places. Eleven places are listed in the legislation, but we know that there are others. Some might be fairly easy to directly put in and deal with, but we need to get more information about others. It would be very helpful to get information from you or any people to whom you talk, if they have direct knowledge of other places or know other people who know about places that they were. I very much take your point: when was a baby home or an orphanage, for want of a better word, actually a mother-and-baby home? It seems to me that they all worked too closely together.

Ms Johnstone: Yes, they did.

Mr Dickson: A trail of babies and mothers went through those processes. The institutions were all known to each other. The people who facilitated those processes, be they Church-based or state-based, knew each other. In the late 1940s, the workhouses were transferred to the county councils in Northern Ireland, and they had responsibility for children's homes, but the people and the system were, quite often, one and the same.

Ms Barbara McCann (Birth Mothers and their Children Together): It was a network.

Ms Johnstone: It was a network.

Mr Dickson: If you could help us, that would be very useful.

Ms Johnstone: Some people came forward to the independent panel and named other places.

Mr Dickson: Good.

Ms Johnstone: Unfortunately, as the Bill stands, those people are more or less left out, because the place was a private home or nursing home. That is why I say that it needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. You cannot just say, "No, you are out, because you were not in an institution as such". Those women went through the same thing that we did. It might not have been for the length of time as us, and there might have been slight differences, but those children were taken and sent to the baby homes. Again, that was the pathway. That needs to be looked at very closely.

Mr Dickson: Thank you.

Ms McLaughlin: It is good to hear the evidence from both of you today. You referenced the cross-border aspect of the institutionalisation. How do you think the Executive could take forward discussions with the Irish Government about that? We are talking about the pathways. In many cases, the pathways were not in this jurisdiction — they were in border counties — but those were still the pathways. They are not on the list of institutions because they were not in this jurisdiction, but they were where the babies went; for example, Fahan in Donegal was certainly a pathway for cases in Derry.

Ms Johnstone: Stamullen is another place that was not mentioned, and the Poor Clares. Although they were different organisations, they worked hand in hand. We have colleagues who went through the Stamullen pathway, so that is another one that needs to be looked at. The North/South Ministerial Council needs to be brought in a bit more with regard to data-sharing. They are different jurisdictions. There needs to be more correspondence between North and South. The organisations and institutions did not recognise borders. I heard earlier about the fact that you could not bring butter or a cow or a sheep across the border without paperwork, but those babies and those women were just put into cars and taken back and forth.

Ms McLaughlin: We have talked to everyone who has given evidence today about the importance of the institutions being compelled to make payment. How important is that for you in seeking justice?

Ms Johnstone: It is very important. The way that it sits, it would be going cap in hand and saying, "Please, can you give me some money?". I really do not agree with that. I know that nothing can be done until after the public inquiry and there is proof of wrongdoing — I take that on board — but, from then on, there must be legislation to compel the institutions and religious orders to give up their records for a start, and also to pay for restitution and redress, not just for the redress payments but to provide a wrap-around care package for all victims and survivors. As I said, we are all getting older, and we need a little bit of help and support. We get it from WAVE, but that costs money. Why should the Government, while they were complicit, bear the whole burden? A proportion of that bill needs to be paid by all the institutions and religious orders that were involved.

Ms McLaughlin: Barbara, do you want to add anything to that?

Ms McCann: They are all interlinked, and they are all selling off their assets because nothing has been put in place. The Churches and everything else all know how to hide money. If they can hide all those things and leave it to the state to pay out whatever has to be paid, that is what they will do. Something should be put in place alongside this, whenever the inquiry is finished, to say, "This is what is happening, and this is what you have to do". There should be no hiding places any more, because that is what this is all about: there have been too many hiding places. As you said, a sheep going across the border was valued more than a baby or a mummy: that is not right. It is not right that they are allowed to hide their money or whatever. Their excuse is that it happened years ago, that it was not them and that nobody is alive who can say this or that, but that is not the point. We have all read the books. Sometimes, you have to put your hands up and say, "Yes, it was us. Sorry".

Ms Johnstone: Accountability.

Ms McCann: Yes. We need truth and accountability: that is all that we are after.

Ms McLaughlin: Thank you.

Mr Kingston: You have answered some of the questions that I wanted to ask. We are constantly looking at the list of institutions. You referenced the historical institutional abuse inquiry, which focused on children who were placed in abusive settings and institutions. This inquiry and redress scheme is for pregnant women and their children who were born in those institutions. Are you saying that women were sent to St Joseph's baby home?

Ms Johnstone: The babies.

Ms McCann: The babies.

Mr Kingston: The babies were sent there afterwards?

Ms Johnstone: Yes.

Mr Kingston: Were they not picked up in the HIA scheme? Is that what you are saying?

Ms Johnstone: No. The under-fives were not, and neither were the over-18s. A few birth mothers got through in the HIA inquiry because they were under 18, but Sir Anthony Hart discounted the over-18s and the under-fives from the get-go.

Mr Kingston: Was there a list of eligible institutions in that scheme? How were they missed?

Ms Johnstone: He just discounted them. His words were that it would be too big to look at the baby homes, the HIA and the mother-and-baby homes. He broke it down to the ones in the middle, and that was the historical institutional abuse inquiry.

Mr Kingston: Right. This will be an admission-based redress scheme. That is why it is necessary to have a list of institutions. If you had been admitted to —

Ms McCann: That is why we need the follow-on places. So many mummies had their babies and the baby was put straight into St Joseph's in Belfast, Nazareth House, Conneywarren or other places. The mummy had the baby in hospital, and the baby was transferred straight to one of those places. Those were like stepping-stone places, where the babies were then adopted from. I am a big baby, but I am a baby. I have a brother who is three years older than me. He went from the hospital to St Joseph's in Belfast and was adopted from there. I went from the mother-and-baby home in Newry to St Joseph's in Belfast and was adopted from there. Children were shifted all around.

Mr Kingston: Your birthplace was a hospital?

Ms McCann: My brother was born in a hospital.

Ms Johnstone: You were not.

Ms McCann: I was not. I was born at 4.00 am and, in the emergency, I did not even make it to Daisy Hill Hospital across the road. I think that that was because of the abuse and treatment that my mother had suffered. With them all being connected, they would have known that she had already had a baby. I was her second baby. She was in there for less than two weeks and went into early labour. I was born nine weeks early in 1962.

Mr Kingston: Did you say that your brother was adopted?

Ms McCann: I only found out about my brother three years ago. He is my older brother, and he had been adopted. We are not told things. We are lied to or not told anything. He was adopted from St Joseph's baby home. They were all connected, so, when my mother had her second baby in Newry — me — they knew that she had already had a baby. She must have had a terrible time. She was in there for less than a fortnight, and I was born nine weeks early.

Mr Kingston: That should have been picked up in the HIA inquiry, primarily.

Ms McCann: No, because we were both under five.

Mr Kingston: Can you explain that to me again?

Ms McCann: I was adopted when I was under five, as was my brother. We were in a baby home.

Ms Johnstone: Baby homes were not acknowledged by the HIA inquiry.

Mr Kingston: OK, thank you. That is important.

Mr Gaston: One of my concerns, coming out of today's session, is the list of institutions that will be excluded. That came through in your reference to the private homes. I am clear that I want the homes and institutions that carried this out to be held accountable.

You mentioned giving people their records. At the start, there will be the payment that acknowledges that somebody was in a home. Phase 2 will be a bit more complex as it relates to a person's specific circumstances. The information that a home may hold will be crucial to a person's claim being successful. It is important that we try to iron that out now. I completely agree that homes need to pay. My concern is that the South is a bit further on. The homes that we are talking about were on the island of Ireland. If the Government in the South get there first, I hope that we will get a portion of what is due for the harm that was carried out in Northern Ireland.

You mentioned £10,000 in 2015 not being reflective of that harm. I do not want make this about a monetary value, but you brought that up, and I am interested to know about it. You said that £10,000 is not acceptable. If you put that into the Bank of England website and look at inflation, it appears that, as of August 2015, that would sit at £13,934. If £14,000 were offered as a payment in the legislation, would that be acceptable?

Ms Johnstone: Of those who responded to the public consultation, 54% disagreed with the proposal of £10,000 and agreed that it should be £15,000. A figure of £10,000 was proposed in the public consultation. Then they went away and came back, again, with £10,000. In other words, they did not listen to us.

Mr Gaston: Is that related to the inflation between 2015 and now?

Ms McCann: Yes.

Ms Johnstone: Yes. We worked it out at that based on inflation, the cost of living and, as I said, even the winter fuel payment being taken away. It just does not measure up.

It is not about just money; it is about acknowledgement. There needs to be a tangible acknowledgement. You can have all the seats and parks that you want, but brass — hard money — put into somebody's hand so that they can put up a gravestone or do something else with it in the last years of their life, without having to pay extra tax or anything like that: it is tangible. You cannot replace your child or your mother, but at least you would have money that you can do something with, even if you give it to your grandchildren. I have discussed that with my adopted son. He said that he would not be sure what to do with it, and I asked him to take it and give it to my grandchildren, who I do not know and have not seen grow up. I have three beautiful grandchildren who live in the South of Ireland. I have met them. That is the only gift that I could give to them. That is a very personal feeling for me.

Mr Gaston: Thank you.

Ms Ní Chuilín: All the questions that I wanted to ask have been asked. I want to say thank you, because this has not been easy for you. We are not done yet, but you can see from the questions that we are asking that we are trying to honour what came out of the consultation and to amend parts of the Bill, where we can. Again, there is no guarantee that that will happen. Everybody feels a sense of injustice for all of you.

I am constantly told that the crossover between the private nursing homes and the religious orders — what Barbara described as a "network" — was fluid. They were helping each other out by taking babies in, adopting babies out and all that sort of stuff. We have been told that we need to put more places on that list. It is about how that will be reflected in an amendment to ensure that the public inquiry digs deeper into it. We will try to look at all those things. Everyone who has come forward has said that the institutions that are mentioned in the Bill exclude the baby homes and the private nursing homes.

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I want to pick up on one point. I do not necessarily want to open the conversation again, but I want to reference paragraph 14 of your submission, which is about clause 31(2)(b). I raised this issue with one of the previous panels. That clause mentions if:

You outlined in your submission that you do not think that that clause reflects the fact that the institutions were places of:

Ms McCann: I really do not, not even in my mother's case. I never got to meet her. By the time I got the address, she had died. I survived. I am here. I am not in the best of health — I have never been in the best of health — but I am here. How many mummies did not survive having ended up, for whatever reason, having a second baby, as they would have said, "out of wedlock" and being punished for it?

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): I just want to acknowledge that that is a powerful —

Ms Johnstone: The use of language is crucial, and that sometimes gets lost. To say that it was a place of "shelter or maintenance" really galls, because I know that, for the majority of women and girls who were institutionalised in those places, it certainly was not a place of "shelter".

The Chairperson (Ms Bradshaw): Thanks very much, ladies. Thank you for your submissions up to this point.

Ms Johnstone: Thank you for listening to us.

Ms McCann: Thank you very much.