NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times
Gerry Moriarty
Thu, Sep 11, 2014
The Sisters of Nazareth have accepted that there was a “grave injustice” done to some 130 children who were sent to Australia from care homes in Northern Ireland as part of a child migration programme that mainly ran from the late 1920s to the mid 1950s.
Sister Brenda McCall, representing the Sisters of Nazareth, acknowledged the suffering caused to the children who were sent to Australia as part of a scheme by the Australian government to bring “white” children of “good stock” into the country.
Sister Brenda told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down today that the Sisters of Nazareth were involved in sending about 111 children to Australia in the scheme which seems to have petered out in the mid to late 1950s.
The former St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Derry, where Des McDaid (70) was admitted as a child in 1946. He was then sent to Australia in 1953. Photograph: Trevor McBrideMan (70) tells inquiry he was abused in NI institution and in Australia as child
Although the witness had a happy childhood in Australia, she said feelings of “abandonment and isolation came to the surface” when she got engaged.Witness suffered feelings of ‘abandonment and isolation’
“In hindsight looking back there was a grave injustice done to these children in sending them out. And not just to the children but to their families as well,” she said.
“I think no matter the most eloquent apology or the most beautiful monument or no matter how much money they receive it will never make up for what we took from them,” she added.
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