TRNI

💔NEW: 'A little boy still looking for his mummy.' Estimated number of women admitted to Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries 2,000 higher than previously thought. 🎤Chief Reporter @jamesgould23 reports from Belfast and speaks to Paul McClarey. Paul was taken from his mother when he was just 18 days old. Sharing his story, he describes his experience of the care system and his search to find his mother. He says the pain will never go away. A new report has found the estimated number of women admitted to Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland is around 2,000 higher than previously thought. The co-chairs of the Truth Recovery Independent Panel found that "human rights abuses, degrading treatment, and forced separation of families are recurring and frequent" in evidence provided by survivors. The 10-person Independent Panel, which includes three victims/survivors, was appointed by the Executive Office in 2023 to investigate the institutions run by the Catholic Church, religious orders, some Protestant denominations and the State until the 1990s. Last week, Stormont passed legislation to establish a public inquiry and financial redress scheme for victims and survivors of Mother and Baby Institutions. The report concludes that many of the experiences described amounted to degrading treatment and, in some cases, are likely to have reached the threshold of inhuman treatment. It makes 70 recommendations, including 28 for the forthcoming public inquiry and 39 for the Northern Ireland Executive. Among its recommendations, the Panel calls for the immediate appointment of the chair of the public inquiry, warning that "synergies that should have been created between the Panel and the inquiry have been lost due to delay in establishing the public inquiry." It also recommends that women and girls who gave birth in workhouses and were separated from their children, along with the children separated from their mothers, should be included within the scope of the financial redress scheme. More on-air and online.