A FORMER resident of a mother-and-baby institution in Northern Ireland has threatened legal action over Stormont’s failure to deliver a public inquiry and redress.
In 2021, the Northern Ireland executive was urged to establish a public inquiry into mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and workhouses in Northern Ireland and to deliver financial redress.
More than 14,000 women and teenage girls passed through those institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1990, research has indicated.
A former resident of the Good Shepherd Mother and Baby Home has vowed to take legal action over the failure to implement the recommendations.
In their pre-action letter, the survivor said that she had been taken to the former institution by her mother and a priest when three months pregnant.
“One day, I was called to see the head nun. She told me that my baby was going to be put up for adoption.
“It was still early in my pregnancy. This made me really upset. I could not stop crying. I sat in my room every day staring at the walls. I felt trapped and isolated.”
“The nun made me feel that I was rotten and unwanted because I was pregnant and not married,” she said.
She described the stay as having had a “severe impact” on her mental health and stressed the need for redress for those who went through mother-and-baby institutions.
“The recommendations of the Truth Recovery Design Panel were an important first step in the process towards redress and recognition,” she said.
“The panel delivered its recommendations to the executive in October 2021. The executive, despite promises and assurances, has failed to implement the recommendations to honour those promises and assurances to date.
“I want to challenge that failure and that delay.”
A previous academic study outlined the scale of mistreatment endured by thousands of women and girls in the institutions.
The research, by Queen’s University and Ulster University, found that more than 14,000 girls and women went through the doors of mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and other institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1990.
Many were mistreated, held against their will and forced to give up children for adoption.
Earlier this week, First Minister Michelle O’Neill said a public consultation on the inquiry and financial redress would open this week.
She added that she hoped to see a draft Bill introduced in the Northern Ireland Assembly before the end of this year.
