Openness needed about Mother & Baby Homes

SIR –  I feel it only right to come out in support of our lady TD’s campaign for openness in the atrocious Mother & Baby Homes scandal.

As a ‘Blow-in’, I’m only too aware of the value we can attach to the simple existence of the ‘Constitution,’ a document that is increasingly being seen as desirable in the UK where its equivalent is the sum total of every Act of Parliament on the Statute Book, a jungle the ordinary citizen has no chance of understanding.

By simply browsing the subject on a PC, I found the State’s undertaking to us that we are entitled to ‘Personal Liberty’ unless there is a statute to the contrary. With no legal expertise I was thus able to determine for myself that there is no law against becoming pregnant when not married, nor would such an act justify the HSE in committing the woman concerned to a mental care facility. I therefore assume that any other form of detention is deemed unlawful, and probably has been since 1922.

As Ireland gradually drifts into a more secular society, the apportionment of blame needs to reflect that its history is one of theocratic democracy where the government that should have intervened was heavily influenced by those committing the crime. I feel it is therefore only fair that guilt is evenly spread between the offenders and those who should have carried out the State’s wishes.

For the public to have confidence in those employed to govern the country, the law must not only be applied, but must be seen to be applied, failure to do so requiring public explanation. All judicial records should be available in print or electronically, the only exceptions being in matters of national security or, as in this case, where coded anonymity may be afforded to children and those victims whose identities will cause distress if published.  Only such victims would be appraised of their codes.

For clarity, this is not an attempt at ‘Church bashing’, but ‘the Law is the Law’?

Nick Turner,

Drimoleague.