Momentum is building in this campaign to ensure that survivors’ means-tested benefits are not at risk if they receive a financial award from the Irish government’s Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.
Currently, survivors who accept an offer of payment from the scheme could lose a range means-tested benefits as the payment will be treated as savings. This situation is causing extra stress and anxiety among the very people the scheme is meant to be helping.
A packed Committee Room in Westminster heard from a panel of speakers: Liam Conlon, MP for Beckenham and Penge and Chair of Labour Party Irish Society; Jane Libberton, Campaigner and daughter of survivor Philomena Lee; Rosa Gilbert, Policy and Research Manager at Irish in Britain; and Séan Kaluarachchi, Survivor Information Adviser at the London Irish Centre.
The meeting was chaired by Associate Editor, Bloomberg UK, Ailbhe Rea.
Cruel institutions
Liam opened by talking about the Mother and Baby Homes, which he described as “cruel institutions”. He talked of the experiences of women in the Homes, how they had their children forcibly removed from them, often never to be seen again, just as happened to Philomena Lee, who the law is named after.
He pointed out the transgenerational trauma this treatment inflicted, because children were denied knowledge about their roots and were told their mother had rejected them.
There were gasps in the room when he told the story of one MP who approached him after his proposal for Philomena’s Law in the House of Commons. She told him her grandfather was born in a Mother and Baby Home but they only found this out after he died. She described how this affected her mum who had lived her entire life not knowing this and regretted “the conversations they had missed out on”.
He also talked about the scandal of the women who came to England to escape the Homes and who were forcibly sent back to Ireland, and the babies sent from England to Ireland without knowing they had been born here.
Cross-party support
He told the audience about the positive feedback he has had from MPs across the House for his proposal. MPs Dawn Butler, Andy Slaughter and Seamus Logan also attended.
Dawn Butler, who represents the largest Irish-born constituency in Britain told the room “You have our 100 percent support”.
Philomena’s daughter Jane spoke of the stigma that still surrounds the experiences of survivors and how that needs to be overcome, saying of her mum:
“when she first told me 20 years ago, she didn’t want anyone to know, because of the shame... and that needs to change… the uptake of compensation has been very low, we need to let people know, they didn’t do anything wrong”.
She said originally her mother “actually thought she had no story to tell, she said, because it's just her life and what happened to her. And obviously, over the years, we've realised just how many people it's happened to.”
Rosa Gilbert explained how survivors’ welfare benefits are at risk if they accept a financial offer, and how the limit of 6 months to make a decision as to whether to accept an offer from the payments scheme does not give enough time for survivors unsure how it will affect them.
She pointed to the fact that there was already legislation in place in Northern Ireland to ensure payments from the scheme do not impact survivors’ benefits.
Survivor support in Britain
Séan Kaluarachchi told the audience about the national freephone number for survivors in Britain in the London Irish Centre and how he has helped many survivors access payments.
He reported that he has also represented many clients who fought to have extensions to the deadline to accept or decline an offer because they have been worried about their benefits and their social care. But he added that when he tells clients about what Liam Conlon was doing to try and change the law they were “very uplifted”.
Many different Irish community organisations were represented in the room, including icap, Fréa and several contributed to the discussion.
Irish in Britain’s CEO Brian Dalton said “Many people here today have worked together to highlight this anomaly, to address what's really been an historical injustice and a lack of equity for those living with the legacy of Irish residential institutions in Britain. It's heartening to see such a broad consensus for change and that's why this is such an important opportunity, and we would argue, an obligation, to address that.”
Katie Doyle from the London Irish Centre talked of her experience of supporting survivors, and speaking as one herself, she said many were being “retraumatised” by the process of claiming payments. She said “it's really, really important that this bill is passed”.
Liam Conlon stated: “It’s simply not good enough that we now have boxed thousands of women and children, survivors into a situation where if they accept compensation and they are on means-tested benefits that they risk losing that compensation benefit altogether”.
He also stressed this was a much wider issue than simply financial payments: “This is more than the law, more than words on paper, it’s about cultural change.”
The National Response Freephone Line is 0800 519 5519. It is open 10am – 4pm every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. NB: this freephone can only be rung from within the UK.
Details of other organisations offering support in Britain and Ireland can be found HERE.