TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has formally apologised to survivors of abuse in industrial and reformatory schools.
“I apologise on behalf of the State for the abuse and neglect that you suffered. What happened to you was wrong, shocking and should never have happened,” he said in the Dáil this afternoon.
The State apology comes after 51-day hunger strike by survivors outside Leinster House.
They were calling for Health Amendment Act (HAA) cards and a State contributory pension in recognition of the suffering and forced labour they endured as children in State institutions.
The protest concluded last November after the Taoiseach and the then-Minister for Education entered a mediation process.
Last month, the government agreed on a package of additional supports, including better access to health, education, housing and funerals.
While supports for survivors were approved in 2023, these did not include HAA cards or pension-type payments. Such payments are available to survivors of mother-and-baby homes and the Magdalene Laundries.
Before the Taoiseach spoke, Leas Ceann Comhairle John McGuinness welcomed survivors Mary Donovan, Mary Dunlevy Greene, Miriam Moriarty Owens and Maurice Patton O’Connell to the Dáil public gallery. They received a round of applause.
Micheál Martin also paid tribute to them when he got to his feet.
Mary Donovan, Mary Dunlevy Greene, Miriam Moriarty Owens and Maurice Patton O’Connel in the Dáil’s public gallery. Oireachtas TV
Oireachtas TV
“Your presence is testament to your tireless commitment to shining a light into the dark corners of both our past and present,” he said.
‘Deeply sorry for the harm you suffered’
Martin reiterated the apology that the government made to victims of childhood abuse in 1999 “for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain and to come to their rescue.”
He said: “I want to unequivocally apologise to you and reiterate on behalf of the Government, the State, and all the citizens of the State, the profound sorrow for the terrible pain and abuse suffered by you.
What you endured on a daily basis as innocent children was harrowing, heartbreaking and wrong.
Martin said he fully recognises that the traumatic impact of abuse for survivors “has been enduring”.
“The deep personal toll that it has taken on the lives of survivors was brought home to me again in my recent engagements with the group who are here today,” he said.
“I was moved to hear each of your personal stories, and I am deeply sorry for the harm that you suffered as a consequence of the abuse you experienced in state institutions.”
Boarded out
Martin said some survivors had made him aware of the abuse they suffered when they were boarded out from industrial and reformatory schools when he met them. This is something that was examined in the Ryan Report, which was published in 2009.
“Testimony detailed elsewhere in that report conveyed the harrowing experiences of some of those who were boarded out and the palpable sense of abandonment they felt.”
He cited the apology issued to Irish mothers and children who were in Mother and Baby Homes in 2021, where he acknowledged that some children who were boarded out “experienced heartbreaking exploitation, neglect and abuse within the families and communities in which they were placed”.
He said the government recognised that there were many situations where children in boarded out arrangements were wrongly and harshly treated.
They were not raised as part of a family or given the opportunities they should have been in relation to their care and education. We know that some were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused,” he said.
“I am very sorry for what was done to you. I apologise on behalf of the State for the abuse and neglect that you suffered. What happened to you was wrong, shocking and should never have happened.”
Supports
The Taoiseach confirmed that the government is now moving to a new phase of supports for survivors of institutional abuse.
These include strengthened access to health services for survivors of industrial and reformatory schools through appointment of dedicated health liaison officers and better access to counselling and physiotherapy services.
The government has also agreed to provide additional funding for education grants under the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Act 2025, he said.
While survivors had sought a Contributory State Pension, Martin said they recognised “the complexity of the issue” and that they have agreed with the survivors to explore ways to address the matter that would be “more flexible and easier to access”.
He said the government has approved the expansion of the education support payments scheme to include provision of support for informal learning, self-development and wellbeing activities.
Measures to ensure that survivors are prioritised for social housing needs have also been progressed, he added.
‘No criminal records’
The survivors had also called for the apology to address the fact that none of them would have a criminal record as a result of having been in an industrial or reformatory school.
“I wish to categorically confirm, for the record, that the State did not, and does not regard individuals, by virtue of their detention in any industrial school as having committed a criminal offence, and that no criminal record is recorded against them,” the Taoiseach said.
“With regard to children who were detained in industrial schools and who were subsequently transferred to a reformatory school solely by virtue of their detention in the industrial school, they are likewise not considered to have had any criminal record.”
This was confirmed by Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan in a statement this afternoon.
No person and, in particular, no agency of the State, should regard these individuals as having committed a criminal offence, or having a criminal record.
O’Callaghan said that survivors who wish to have further confirmation can be provided with a written certificate, on a case-by-case basis, including posthumously, following receipt and review of records.
The process for obtaining a certificate will be put in place by the Department of Justice “as soon as possible”, he said. Anyone who wishes to obtain their records for the purposes of seeking such a certificate should email survivorsupports@education.gov.ie.
The first four of these certificates have been prepared for a group of industrial school survivors, and will be issued by O’Callaghan.
‘A stain on the nation’
Tánaiste Simon Harris thanked the survivors for highlighting “the ongoing legacy of trauma bestowed by this country’s shameful history of cruelty towards children”.
“The State has sometimes compounded the wrongs of the past by failing to admit them quickly enough and failing to comprehensively acknowledge our part in them,” Harris said.
“I can think of too many examples where this has been the case and hope today might serve another purpose in helping us to learn from that for once and for all.”
Simon Harris speaking in the Dáil. Oireachtas TV
Oireachtas TV
The Fine Gael leader said today’s apology was building on the apology issued in 1999 and recalled the abuse described in the Ryan Report.
He recalled being in the Dáil in 2013, when the government apologised to women who were in Magdalene laundries, and in 2021 when an apology was given to those who spent time in Mother and Baby Homes.
“So many occasions when we have had to once again unleash the national trauma of our past and expose again the wounds which never healed for children afflicted by a culture where indifference enabled violence, neglect and abuse,” he said.
The dark past of this country is an abyss of misery for the children so victimised.
Harris said the government is “deeply committed to ensuring” that “we must always be vigilant and always seek to improve services and safeguards” for children.
He concluded by restating “our deep sorrow for the grievous wrong that was done to you as children”.
“We can never forget that the suffering deliberately imposed on the most blameless innocents is a stain on our nation.”
Calls for apology for hunger strike
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the scale and depth of abuse and violence suffered by victims “has rippled and reverberated for decades, sometimes as quiet and uncertain as a whisper, sometimes powerful enough to rock our collective conscience, but always there”.
Mary Lou McDonald speaking in the Dáil. Oireachtas TV
Oireachtas TV
She described industrial schools were “a state-sanctioned system of abuse of vulnerable children operated on the watch of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments”.
“Children who needed care and safety were instead met with the most unimaginable cruelty. They were criminalised and victimised.”
McDonald said the State and successive governments not only sanctioned systematic abuse of children, “but it was then covered up”.
She said survivors are still fighting for full truth and justice and for the supports they deserve. “That is what brought the four survivors of industrial school abuse to the gates of the Dáil last September.”
Acknowledging the four survivors present in the Dáil, she said it took them going on a hunger strike for 51 days to be heard by the government, where their demands were “shamefully ignored”.
You were allowed to go on hunger strike to the point where you developed real, genuine health concerns. I think you deserve an apology for that too.
The Sinn Féin leader said survivors called off their protest after proposals that were “belatedly tabled” by the Taoiseach.
“I can only hope and pray that the full package of measures is true to those proposals, and that government in full follows through on its promises.”
Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins has said that the State apology will be “meaningless” if the government fails to honour its commitment to provide additional supports for survivors.
“It is shameful that it took a 51-day hunger strike by four survivors of industrial and reformatory schools to extract today’s formal apology from the government. This is the very least that survivors of systematic institutional abuse deserve,” she said.
“While the government eventually agreed to meet survivors’ reasonable demands for health, housing and financial supports, most of these commitments have yet to be honoured.”
Cummins also said “serious questions remain” as to why the four survivors had to undertake a 51-day hunger strike “before a resolution could be reached with the government”.
