(IRELAND)
The Irish News [Belfast, Northern Ireland]
July 7, 2026
By John Breslin
Independent panel launches major report after taking testimony from hundreds of women sent to Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries
Human rights abuses, degrading treatment, and forced separation of families were recurring and frequent in connection with mother and baby homes, the lead authors of a major new report said on Tuesday.
More than 15,000 women and girls were sent to Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries between 1920 and the 1990s, higher than previously estimated, the report found.
Many of these women faced “degrading treatment” while a key theme of the report is the number subjected to rape or other abuse prior to being sent to the institutions, the Truth Recovery Independent Panel (TRIP) found.
The panel recommends survivors are afforded “core participant status” in any public inquiry.
This gives them access to records, the ability to suggest lines of questioning and allows their legal representatives to make opening and closing arguments, among other things.
But it is also calling for the immediate appointment of the chair of the public inquiry while expressing regrets “synergies that should have been created between the panel and the inquiry have been lost due to delay in establishing the public inquiry”.
Legislation establishing the public inquiry and a redress scheme was only finally passed by the Assembly last week, nearly five years after it was first recommended and accepted by the Executive.
The panel’s final report includes 70 recommendations, 28 directed at the forthcoming public inquiry, 39 for the Northern Ireland Executive and three for future independent panels.
More than 15,000 women and girls are estimated to have been admitted to the Mother and Baby Institutions and Magdalene Laundries from 1920 to the 1990s. This is higher than previously estimated, the panel found.
The ten member panel, which included three survivors, described the report as “a comprehensive account of the hidden history of the institutions” along with how women and girls found themselves there and how babies were then moved on into the outside world.
Professors Leanne McCormick and Sean O’Connell, panel co-chairs, said the report includes testimony from almost 300 people who were directly affected by the institutions. This includes some who previously gave testimony to a joint Queen’s University/Ulster University 2021 report.
“We hope this, alongside our work with PRONI to preserve thousands of records for the first time, will help ensure that the work of the public inquiry can be carried out as swiftly as possible and that the goals of truth, acknowledgment and accountability are reached,” the co-authors said.
“We have greatly advanced our understanding of the issues and now have much more detail about how these institutions were run in Northern Ireland.
“Issues of gender-based discrimination, human rights abuses, degrading treatment, and forced separation of families are recurring and frequent. They should all be examined thoroughly by the public inquiry.” Access to records also causes distress and concern for survivors, they added.
The report identifies a key theme emerging from testimonies shared was the sexual abuse and rape of many girls and women prior to their admission to an institution. This was only one aspect of the gender-based discrimination that enabled the existence of these institutions, the panel states.
It found systemic failures by the state to exercise effective oversight of the Magdelene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes along with foster, boarding-out and adoptive placements.
The report reveals further information on how these young women found themselves in the institutions and into the cross-border movement of children.
Any public inquiry should further investigate the role of private nursing homes and private family homes in the concealment of pregnancy and in family separation.
A range of human rights issues identified should be investigated further by the public inquiry, including the sexual abuse and rape of many girls and women prior to their admission to an institution, the panel recommends.
More broadly, it is recommended the inquiry looks at the abuse, neglect and inadequate care in mother and baby institutions.
In many cases, their experiences amounted to degrading treatment, and in some cases, the experiences described are likely to reach the threshold of inhuman treatment, the report states.
Specifically, the panel also notes Marianville, the Mother and Baby Institution run by Good Shepherd on the Ormeau Road, acted as a third-party adoption agency between 1950 and 1970.
The panel said it was not given access to records from Barnardo’s or the Sisters of Mercy in relation to the baby institutions they operated. These should be investigated by the public inquiry, it said.
For the Executive, the panel recommends the Clogrennan mother and baby institution, Larne and Thorndale Industrial Home, Belfast, be added to the list of institutions to be investigated by the public inquiry.
It also says women and girls who gave birth in workhouses and were separated from their children should be included in the scope of the standardised payment scheme.
The Executive Office should establish an effective mechanism and begin negotiations with those responsible for the institutions to seek financial contributions to the redress scheme, the panel says.
The report will provide a platform for an “honest account” of what happened and must never happen again, said one survivor following its publication.
Adele Johnston, of Birth Mothers and their Children Together, said it “will not deliver justice or alleviate the pain and suffering endured” but will provide the platform.
“There are 70 recommendations and this will take time for us to process. There are many people who started this journey with us but they did not live to see this day but I hope this report acknowledges their suffering,” Ms Johnstone said.
“The veil of secrecy and shame must be torn down.”
Paul McClarey, of Truth Recovery NI, who was on the panel said it was a “truly significant day for victims and survivors”.
“I hope this report is a culmination of the voices of victims who gave their lived experiences many for the first time. I encourage more to come forward to the inquiry,” Mr McClarey said.
Claire McKeegan, solicitor at Phoenix Law, which represents many survivors, said the report “is the result of years of determination by survivors who refused to allow their stories to remain hidden”.
“They have carried the burden of trauma, stigma and loss for far too long. This report must not be viewed as the end of the process but as a foundation for meaningful action.”