Extension of Redress Scheme for Mother and Baby Homes
Mark McCollum was among thousands of children born to unmarried mothers in Northern Ireland who were placed in institutions.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has approved a revision to the "cut-off date" for compensation eligibility for relatives of individuals who resided in mother-and-baby institutions.
Initially, only families of victims who passed away after 29 September 2011 qualified for redress payments under the proposed legislation—a condition campaigners criticized as "insulting."
On Monday, Assembly members endorsed an amendment broadening the scheme to include relatives of those who died after 28 April 1953.
Mark McCollum, born at the Marianvale institution in Newry, expressed feeling "relieved" by the extension of eligibility for the scheme.
He never met his birth mother, Kathleen McGuire, who died in 2000 at age 54.
The institutions, which operated in Northern Ireland for approximately seventy years, were secretive facilities for unmarried women and girls and their children.
Recognition of Past Wrongs
"The legislation is about recognition that what happened to the women affected as well as their children and their families was 'wrong then and wrong now',"McCollum said.
"I was taken over the border and placed in an institution in Donegal when you weren't allowed to take butter over the border. But they were taking babies over the border."
"There are so many people who died prematurely,"he added.
"The recognition shouldn't depend on how long someone lived.
The whole point of this process was to have as few people left behind as possible."
Mark's mother Kathleen McGuire was sent to Marianvale mother-and-baby home
He observed from the public gallery as Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw, chair of the Executive Office Committee, read an email in which he recounted his birth mother's story.
"I would have loved to have known what she would have thought about it,"McCollum said.
He described the amendment changing the cut-off date for posthumous applications to 1953 as a "compromise," noting he had hoped the redress scheme would be accessible to relatives of any victims since Northern Ireland's establishment in 1922.
Bradshaw proposed the amendment on behalf of the committee, which oversees the work of the Stormont department led by the first and deputy first ministers.
She stated in the Assembly:
"1953 marks a significant improvement on 2011, which was a completely arbitrary date and a slap in the face for so many families."
She explained that the committee selected 1953 because it aligns with the posthumous eligibility cut-off date used in the redress scheme established following the 2017 inquiry into child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland.
Concerns Over Survivors Exclusion
Marie Arbuckle, who was sent to an institution at age 17, was present at Stormont during the debate's further consideration stage.
She grew up in Northern Ireland but was sent to a mother-and-baby institution in Dublin as a teenager.
Arbuckle expressed disappointment that the Assembly did not approve amendments proposed by People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll to extend the redress scheme to mothers and children who had been in workhouses.
"A group of survivors has been left out, and these are the oldest survivors we have,"she said.
"One of them died giving testimony.
I don't understand why survivors have to fight."
The Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) junior minister in the Executive Office, Joanne Bunting, noted that the amendment would increase costs by an estimated £22 million in redress payments and an additional £8 million for support services and information retrieval.
The bill currently progressing through the Assembly will establish an inquiry into mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene Laundries, and workhouses, along with an associated redress scheme.
More than 10,000 pregnant women and girls passed through these institutions, which were primarily operated by religious orders from the 1920s until the 1990s.
The legislation is scheduled for one more debate in the Assembly, its final stage.
