“We did this to ourselves as a society.”
These simple and very harsh words spoken by Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin will perhaps mark the culmination of a painful examination of conscience.
After five years of work, the commission charged with investigating the fate of tens of thousands of "unmarried mothers" and "illegitimate" children born between 1922 and 1998 in eighteen homes managed by the Church or the state, published a thick report of about 3,000 pages on Tuesday.
Nourished by the testimonies of 250 former residents, he pulverizes the leaden cover that has enveloped this closed world for so long.
In total, the authors estimate that 9,000 children have died in these "mother and child homes" - or 15% of this population over eight decades.
“This very high mortality rate was known to local and national authorities
,
”
concludes the report, which sees it as
“the most troubling characteristic”
of these institutions.
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"The State has let you down": Ireland apologizes after the scandal of houses for single mothers
The silence of a world today vanished, that
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