Mother and Baby Homes Commission — Report and Redress Scheme

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters was established by Government Order on 17 February 2015, following the publication in 2014 of research by historian Catherine Corless documenting the deaths and burials of approximately 796 children at the Tuam mother and baby home in County Galway. The Commission was chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy and had three members. Its terms of reference covered 18 named institutions — mother and baby homes and county homes — that operated in Ireland between 1922 and 1998.

In March 2018 excavations at the site of the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway, confirmed the presence of human remains, including the remains of babies and children, in an underground structure associated with the former home. The discovery confirmed the historical research of Catherine Corless and was reported internationally. The Commission commissioned a forensic examination of the site. The Irish Government commissioned a feasibility study on exhumation, identification and reburial of the remains, a process expected to take many years and cost tens of millions of euros.

The Commission of Investigation published its 3,000-page final report on 12 January 2021. The report documented the deaths of approximately 9,000 children (15% of all children born in the 18 institutions) at rates substantially above the national average; described the conditions in the homes as harsh, with children and mothers subjected to physical punishment and emotional deprivation; documented illegal vaccine trials carried out on children at certain homes in the 1930s–1950s; detailed the practice of boarding-out and informal adoption; and stated that the Irish State, the Catholic Church and Irish society bore collective responsibility. The report was transmitted to Minister Roderic O'Gorman and published in full on gov.ie.

On 12 March 2021 Taoiseach Micheál Martin delivered a formal State apology to survivors of mother and baby homes in Dáil Éireann. The apology was directed to survivors, former residents and their families, and acknowledged the failure of the State and Irish society to protect women and children in the institutions. The apology was broadly welcomed but survivor groups, including the Clann Project and ZEPH, argued it was not accompanied by sufficient concrete commitments on redress, records access or accountability for those responsible for abuse.

In February 2021, shortly after the publication of the final report, it emerged that the Commission had arranged to transfer its archive — including personal records of survivors, mothers and children — to a government department under conditions that would seal the records for 30 years, citing data protection concerns. Survivor groups and legal advocates argued this was contrary to the Commission's obligations and to survivors' rights to their own personal data under GDPR. Minister O'Gorman reversed the decision and committed to developing a survivor-centred records access framework. The National Records of Ireland (subsequently renamed the Irish National Archives) became the proposed custodian.

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2022, enacted in April 2022, established the legislative basis for a financial payment scheme for survivors of the 18 institutions covered by the Commission's report. The Act created a tiered payment system: a general payment based on time spent in the institution (from €5,000 to €50,000), and enhanced payments for survivors who experienced specific additional harms (up to €125,000). The total scheme cost was estimated at approximately €800 million. The Act also established a survivor-records access mechanism and a memorialisation programme.

In October 2022 survivor advocacy organisations including ZEPH (now Survivors Unite) and the Clann Project formally announced they were rejecting the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme as inadequate and discriminatory. Key grounds for rejection included: the 90-day minimum residency threshold (later extended to 180 days for some provisions) that excluded survivors who spent less time in institutions; the absence of recognition for mothers' suffering from the general payment tier; the exclusion of certain institutions from the scheme's scope; the inadequacy of payments relative to the documented harm; and the absence of accountability for perpetrators. Several survivor groups called for the scheme to be withdrawn and redesigned.

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme opened for applications in November 2023, administered by the Office of the Mastertaker (the scheme's administrative body). Applications could be submitted online or by post. The scheme offered survivors the option of applying for the general payment (based on time in an institution) without disclosing details of specific harms — to reduce the burden on survivors — or of applying for the enhanced payment by providing additional evidence of specific harms. The application window was initially set for two years, with a closing date of November 2025.

The first financial payments under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme were issued to eligible survivors in April 2024. The payments were preceded by an assessment process and identity verification carried out by the scheme's office. By end-2024, hundreds of payments had been issued. The Department reported a total spend of approximately €50 million in payments in the first year of operation. Survivor advocacy groups noted that many of the oldest survivors — some in their 80s and 90s — had died without receiving recognition or payment and called for urgent acceleration of the process.

The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022, enacted alongside the Payment Scheme Act to provide survivors and adoptees with access to their birth and early life records, continued to face implementation challenges in 2025. While the Act gave adoptees a statutory right to their birth certificates and certain identity information, survivors of mother and baby homes faced delays in accessing their full institutional records due to gaps in record-keeping, the dispersal of records across religious congregations, state bodies and the National Archives, and disputes about the extent of the right of access to ancillary records (medical, social work and institutional files).

In early 2026 survivor groups and legal advocates reported concerns that a number of applicants had received payment offers assessed at a lower tier than they believed their circumstances warranted, and that the appeals process under the scheme was slow and insufficiently independent. Legal aid practitioners supporting survivors noted that the assessment process placed significant burdens on elderly and traumatised survivors to produce evidence of specific harms, and that the scheme's design prioritised administrative efficiency over survivor-centred justice. The Department confirmed that an internal review of payment assessment methodology was underway.

The primary intended impact of the redress process is formal State recognition of the harm suffered by survivors and their children in mother and baby homes. The Taoiseach's apology in March 2021 and the Payment Scheme Act 2022 represent the first formal legislative and executive acknowledgment of the State's responsibility. However, survivor groups have consistently argued that financial payments, while necessary, are insufficient recognition of the nature and severity of the harm — which included the permanent separation of mothers and children through adoption — and have called for full accountability, including naming of perpetrators and a public memorial.

A central demand of survivor groups is access to personal records from their time in institutions — including birth records, medical records, social work files and institutional registers. The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 gave adoptees a statutory right to their birth certificate, but the right to access wider institutional records remains contested and implementation has been slow. Many records held by religious congregations have not been systematically transferred to the State. The 2021 controversy over the Commission's archive demonstrated the depth of the institutional resistance to survivor record access.

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme was estimated to cost approximately €800 million over its lifetime. The State bears the full cost of the scheme from public funds. While calls were made for the religious congregations that ran many of the institutions — primarily the Bon Secours Sisters, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd — to make financial contributions proportionate to their institutional responsibility, the Government did not legislate for mandatory congregation contributions. The congregations made voluntary contributions in the region of €16 million — approximately 2% of the total scheme cost — a figure widely criticised as derisory.

The harm documented by the Commission extends beyond those who were residents to an estimated 60,000 women who passed through the institutions and their children, many of whom were adopted (often without full informed consent) and who may not know their origins or the circumstances of their birth. Research on adoption and institutional care documents significant intergenerational trauma effects. The Payment Scheme and records access legislation represent the State's primary response to this intergenerational dimension, but the long-term mental health and identity impacts on adopted persons and their descendants are not fully addressed by either instrument.

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2022 creates a legally enforceable entitlement to financial payment for eligible survivors based on their time in a covered institution and, where applicable, for enhanced harm-specific payments. The Act requires the scheme's administrative office to process applications within defined timeframes, operate an independent appeals mechanism, and report annually to the Minister. Survivors who are assessed as eligible have a legal right to payment; refusal or delay of eligible payments is challengeable by judicial review.

If breached: Judicial review by denied or delayed applicants; political accountability through annual scheme reports to the Oireachtas.

The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 gives adoptees and persons born in or around a relevant institution a statutory right to obtain their birth certificate, early life information and, in certain circumstances, contact with birth relatives. The Act places obligations on Tusla (the Child and Family Agency), An Bord Uchtála (Adoption Authority) and the National Archives to hold and provide access to records. The Act is a partial response to the survivor demand for records access; it does not cover all categories of institutional record.

If breached: Right to appeal refusal of records access to the Data Protection Commissioner or by judicial review; State liability for failure to hold required records.

Article 15 of the GDPR gives individuals the right to obtain confirmation from a data controller as to whether personal data concerning them is being processed and, if so, to receive a copy of that data. Survivors of mother and baby homes who have personal data held by the Commission's archive (now in State custody), religious congregations or health bodies have GDPR rights of access to that data, subject to the exemptions in the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. The controversy in 2021 over the Commission's archive raised explicit GDPR concerns about the proposed 30-year sealing of survivor records.

If breached: Complaint to the Data Protection Commission; investigation and enforcement by the DPC; potential fines and orders for access.

In October 2022 the principal survivor advocacy organisations — ZEPH, the Clann Project and Irish First Mothers — publicly rejected the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme as inadequate and discriminatory. Their objections centred on the minimum residency threshold that excluded short-stay survivors; the absence of recognition for mothers in the general payment tier; the failure to require congregation contributions; the absence of criminal accountability for those responsible for abuses; and the inadequacy of payment levels relative to the severity and duration of the harm. The organisations called for the scheme to be withdrawn and redesigned in genuine partnership with survivors.

Multiple opposition parties and survivor advocates argued during the passage of the Payment Scheme Bill that the religious congregations responsible for running the institutions should be legally required to make financial contributions proportionate to their institutional responsibility, rather than being permitted to make voluntary contributions at a level of their own choosing. The Government's decision not to legislate for mandatory congregation contributions — citing legal complexity and the risk of delaying the scheme — was criticised as allowing the congregations to benefit from State-funded remediation of harm they caused.

In February 2021 the Clann Project and Adoption Rights Alliance raised urgent public objections to the Government's initial intention to transfer the Commission's archive to a government department under terms that would seal the records for 30 years. Legal advocates argued this was contrary to GDPR, to survivors' constitutional right to their own identity information, and to the principle that the Commission's archive was held in trust for survivors and the public. The public and parliamentary reaction was sufficiently strong that Minister O'Gorman reversed the decision within days.