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James Reilly rejects survivors’ request to include Westbank and other Protestant institutions in proposed Mother & Baby homes inquiry

Published: Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Bethany Survivors' Campaign and Survivors of Protestant Children's Institutions met Wednesday 12 November 2014 with James Reilly TD Minister for Children and Youth Affairs

Children's Minister James Reilly rejected a request from survivors to include the Westbank Orphanage and other Protestant institutions in the proposed Mother & Baby homes inquiry.

Bethany Home is included and the Church of Ireland (CofI) Magdalen should be included.

However , survivors' experiences after they left the gates of these homes are excluded from examination, said Mr Reilly. That means Derek Leinster's experiences with the dysfunctional family in Wicklow, to which Bethany Home sent him, is excluded.  It means that John Hill's as an agricultural labourer from age five to 16 is excluded from examination. Only John's three years in the Church of Ireland Magdalen home, where he suffered from rickets, will be looked at.

Westbank survivor Victor Stevenson, one of the very few to be adopted, said, "James Reilly's predecessor, Charlie Flanagan, said when we met him he was anxious to include Westbank and the other institutions besides Bethany Home. I asked if I could quote him on that and he said "yes". What has changed? Why are we out in the cold all over again".

"In other words", said survivors spokesperson Niall Meehan of Griffith College Dublin, "the state is not interested in what happened to Colm Begely after his first birthday."

He explained, "Colm was born in Bethany in 1966, but his real misery began when he was sent to the Westbank Orphanage in Greystones in 1967. He suffered injections for bed-wetting and beatings with electric flexes. He was sent to work as a child labourer on farms in Northern Ireland.

"At age 18 in 1984, Colm was sent with £10.00 from Westbank to a Salvation Army hostel in London. Colm ended up drinking on the streets for a year before gradually putting his life together. What extra would Westbank need to have done to Colm for the state to take an interest?

"The only reason Colm and the others suffered in this way is because the state refused to investigate Westbank when it was open. Physical and sexual abuse went on in a grossly dysfunctional home where few were adopted and where some lived on into their 20s," said Mr Meehan.

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For more information, please contact Niall Meehan, Secretary, Bethany Survivors, Griffith College Dublin –

087 6428671, niall.meehan@gmail.com

Contacts:
•            Derek Leinster, Chairperson, Bethany Survivors - 089 4716048, derek.linster@talktalk.net.
•            Niall Meehan, Secretary, Bethany Survivors, Griffith College Dublin – 087 6428671, niall.meehan@gmail.com
•            Victor Stevenson, Co-ordinator, Protestant Survivors – 048 9147 7165, victor-stevenson@outlook.com

Those attending included the above, and:
•            John Hill (086 1038284) – Survivor Church of Ireland Magdalen Home, Nurse Rescue Society
•            Colm Begley (085 1191222) - Survivor Bethany Home, Westbank Orphanage
•            Sydney Herman – Survivor Westbank Orphanage