Transcripts For ALJAZ Irelands Mother And Baby Scandal P2 20240712

Children that would like the back story this place has become a big problem you have to hear all of them and to treat them with something that in respects. 6 years ago an island secret mass grave for babies was discovered near a home for unmarried pregnant women in an institution run by Roman Catholic nuns to find set off a scandal that has raised disturbing questions about the relationship between the irish state in the Catholic Church and the distressing sight of thousands of children who died in their care in this 2nd part of our investigation correspondent owns me reveals shocking new evidence that the house and way some of those babies with every. 6 years ago it became clear that the bodies of hundreds of babies have been disposed of in an old sewage tank in the grounds of a catholic home for unmarried mothers in choom island. In the 1st part of our investigation we looked at the cruel and abusive treatments by church and states of young women accused of the mortal sin of pregnancy outside marriage. In this 2nd pass we investigate the fates of their babies when they were trapped they were societies. Why would you train a child any better. We reveal the sheer scale of the scandal how foundations of babies died and why families and survivors feel so betrayed by the authorities breaking a torn in the system i guess church and state are going to keep the church from coming helps. And we present shocking distressing new evidence about how and where the religious orders disposed of the bodies. They were often in rather grand buildings legacies of the British Colonial aristocracy. But it is difficult to imagine the harshest dollars in life than to be born into one of violence cruelly misnamed mother and baby homes. Because behind the carefully cultivated a major of pious tranquility lets a very different reality as a medical officer dr james dean who visited best grim other and baby home in 1947 lazar recalled it was a beautiful institution and seemed to be well run. Spotlessly clean. But when he pulled the pristine bedding back from the babies every baby had some puerile into infection of the skin and all had green diarrhoea carefully covered. Despite the resistance of local Church Leaders talk to dini did get improvements in that home but the problems continued elsewhere those high buildings for the children slept Catherine Colas the local historian who 6 years ago told the world about the babies in the sewage tank in choom grew up in the town i remember. Home day business because. Its been silent and carefully. Just pan kind of can mr bow. To miss mother and baby home was run by the bone sekula sisters someone who knew only too well what went on behind those dog walls was Julia Devaney she lived there from 1926 when she was just 8 until it closed in 1961 and then recorded her experiences. The. Whole lot. Of hot. Chocolate. There wasnt any 1st the 1st 1st or well paid for the lost children. Came chilling for her head per child per mother back and. The young women were expected to stay on for a year or more after the baby was born laboring unpaid for the nuns in penance for their sin. The women were literally slave labor so if youre not paying. Out of the meantime the government or pay for every woman and every child indeed sometimes paying more than they should this confidential memo reveals the best bernanke would sometimes continue to claim government payments from others that actually discharged years before. And thats was in the only money spent a while poor mothers paid penance in unpaid labor rich girls could buy their way out for a 5000. 00 euros in todays money. But even rich girls could not avoid the trauma of having their baby taken from them. The nuns soon saw another potential source of income for their. Adoptions. The babies were just in order. But all we were to church tosh right this is a baby making factory i can make money i do. Agree to north. Teresa collins was born ensure also be run by the sisters of the sacred hearts under its then mother superior sister hildegardes mcnulty. The nun very calming. The way they put it into a sisterhood of authority pushed at a donation was met. But did donation 100 pounds. Here were traded humanlike with trade. And so Shannon Airport is just 60 miles west of Sean Ross Abbey found itself at the center of an International Trade in traffics babies mainly to the families of returning american servicemen. To the church realized that babies that are that could be sold to america as carroty quite babies. In order to put the babies up for adoption the nuns would pressurize mothers into signing away their rights and occasionally it seems they also resort to forgery. I was talking to one particular mother who put would actually sign her name and she could do was put down the next and when she went to look at her. For her daughter in the adoption fight the signature was signed her name but not her signature so we know that document but if you wanted to adopt a child there was one criteria you needed to satisfy above all. The Catholic Church was afraid the catholic babies would be adopted by problems that koppels our souls will be lost to the Catholic Church. The true figure of traffics babies may never be known. To this day hundreds of those children may have no idea they are adopted. Sister hildegarde reportedly later at mrs adoptions became shown role savvis greatest source of income. One of those babies was collene anderson although in her case build a god of a possible interest. My birth mom was 14 and she was right so she was sent to Sean Ross Abbey where she had me. Sister hell the car was in charge of all the adoptions. And she sent me to her niece in the states. I didnt realize tell i got older that my adoptive mom was schizo franek and there was a lot of a lot of the physical and mental abuse so i ended up in hospital few times for with head injuries. Her just pushed me against the wall or i come to school sometimes bleeding. But i survived to hand down i wanted to be the opposite of how my adoptive mom was i never married never had kids i was always afraid that i would be like her. Those kids who escaped adoption faced an equally bleak future some were forced to douse often in sweat busa of situations many others was sent to Industrial Schools notoriously brutal places run by religious orders. That out just out of the is that. Yeah even a Morris Oconnell was incarcerated in an Industrial School in truly along with his step brother kevin nobody really saw a mixed race child before. The dogs taught to go to take the doctor and he would 3 or 4 a big brother he was red draw we was we would be. There was one day i was a priest came to visit. But he sexually molested me when i was about 7 years of age. Most kids stayed at Industrial School until the age of 16 when they were kicked out brutalized and ill equipped the independent living. Girls were particularly vulnerable a lot of these young gardeners are taking advantage. Of a sudden they found out or pregnant they barely got a whiff of a little Sister School a bucket of water a baby help them cut tribes fire to a back to laundry us punishment. In magdalene laundries run by nuns socalled fall and women were subjected to abusive regimes of forced labor often for years. Thats why they were a mind of their son that was a nice cover up that repent while they were getting the free labor of. The few people did escape from this Conveyor Belt of abuse but it wasnt easy. In 19097 months pregnant Catherine Brian ran away from best for a mother and baby whom she saved her son educated to self to University Degree and became a rights activist. Taking god. My children had not to do with the system we call it the system now thought it was because the charges are odd to one. But the most shocking consequence of that church and state system was the face of those who didnt escape it or survive its. Between 4 and 6000 babies died in islands mother and baby homes from diseases that reads like a litany of neglect. Malnutrition why does a baby where people are being paid money to look after them die of malnutrition. And on to do the babies were dying of mortality rates of 203040 percent a year year after year and they did nothing about ocean. In 2015 the government set up a commission of investigation into the whole mother and baby home scandal. For the relatives the idea that the remains of thousands of children are scattered around oil and shouldnt really be a matter for a Civil Commission of inquiry its all it should be something for these people the police. Theres always a commission theres always a report what theres always a 4 but we now class that. The commission which has produced several interim reports was supposed to submit its final report and recommendations in 2018 the families and survivors are still waiting. I do not want any more excuses i do not want any more white washing. Above all they want to know where these babies are so they can be identified grieved over and finally and respectfully laid to rest. I have a say when i started here in the mid eightys Michael Donovan was working as a guard in the sean role sabby mother and baby home when he was asked by the nuns to help landscape an overgrown area of scrub going to just start the way fryers off with the top of the hair and. The factor that fall down this way and it turned over to stop and i just noticed office was hauled off. That area where michael found the bones is now a carefully tended child Burial Ground known as an angels plots. But that plant is not all it seems. 9 years ago the nuns admitted to the 269 babies that died in sean ross a number that could plausibly be buried in this plot. But it is now clear that over a 1000 babies died here. So where all of. This photograph was taken in 1974 not long after the nuns close to home but there is no obvious sign of the angels plots which the nuns now claim was a consecrated graveyard where they buried babies in individual coffins however weve established that the area above this hedge which takes up the top 3rd of the nuns claimed angels plots actually contains a pate used by the nuns for the mass burial of unbaptized babies and still belongs. Tony maguire is an archaeologist an anthropologist who specializes in the location next invasion of unmarked graves and i know that just to try to get. It. So with that area unavailable for the families and burials it is even clearer the room. Maining area cannot be the true extent of the graveyards. The most probable scenario is that in reality it extends i thats were faintly visible pathway here on the 974 picture or right up to the Walled Garden here. And that is a cause of deep concern because of Something Else we have discovered. This plan produced by a Tipperary Town council was submitted so the commission a copy has found its way to us. It describes a sewage pipe installed in the late ninetys which runs from an inspection hatch here directly beside the current angels plots to an inspection hatch here and beyond. But as weve established that plan is wrong in several important respects. The inspection hatches are actually here and here and between them in the projects apparently agreed between the nuns and the council a sewage system has been constructed in land which may well contain child burials. Our investigation suggests that the system includes a settlement tank. An overflow pipe here and a sewage outlet pipe cutting through the probable Burial Grounds and then teeing into another tank constructed within the current angels plots. Disturbingly around the same time the sewage system was installed yet small damage was done to the potential Burial Grounds when they were planted with fast growing conifers. What they have now. Over the area where the pipe the left. To. Its also seek damage the pipes. Think any burial that may be included in well. Early 2019 the commission or the Ground Penetrating radar survey of the plots followed by test excavations that still not said what they found but we can reveal the survey confirmed the existence of a tank within the angels plots. Are we. To allow this level of just the question. Baby died. Do we really we just sucks the little. We are not even going to. Like Sean Ross Abbey best spring mother and baby home in cork was run by the sisters of the sacred hearts of jesus and mary whose convent still overlooks the home. The home closed in the late ninetys but that can also raise its awful paused. As they scan Financial Health Service Briefing notes from 1934 to 19531 quarter of all babies died in their 1st 12 months of life. Over 900 babies died here but only 64 graves are recorded and families a desperate to know where the rest are buried. With on field to point to the area that we called the angel of the Little Family farkle or area bring a woman along here there are no. There are no your baby. And so this tiny plots became the focus for the. Of survivors and relatives. Faced with what they call the angel of. The area that they failed at 985. 00 just just enough yeah. We know theyre not final yet. The nuns now suggest they cant remember where they buried them. A claim described by the commission as very difficult to understand. I dont believe for one second they dont know where the Burial Grounds are and i dont believe for one second that they dont how far right are the private pain to her and in both cases. The commission of knowledge that although children could be buried in the grounds they had reviewed all the available maps all available aerial images and had conducted sites salivates they could find new physical or documentary evidence of possible unrecorded burial arrangements. But the commission missed a vital piece of evidence. They smashed. It is a hands on a tape to plan prepared by an official called focus during the site visit in 1949 that morning them to a group found in the archives of the Irish Ordnance survey. And it specifically describes an area along the side of a wooded path leading from the main house towards the fully as a childrens Burial Ground. But could unmarked graves still be physical decades after they were dug a grave never settle. You listen to ground it never fills back in exactly the way it was. So when you get what. I saw my eyes. Also create. A lot. Vegetations defends you can see the impressions in the ground i could be in a. The greatest gender form of it. We are in the role of an area where founding on how grown. And my offering on the babys brain. Is a courtroom thing that we dont deal in ireland. We sent the drone up to get a better view. We could see a couple of old fetched beds. But Something Else as well. Smaller rectangular patches. We took our images to tony. They are regular a rose. By. Name with much to find for an individual. Given the gene have a potential for burial here there are definite areas and just significantly of interest. To even know prominent features like. If it was just. In that small area alone we can discern perhaps a couple of dozen potential grapes. So this whole area is vitally important to the families and to the commission. But its also of course a potential crime scene. Which makes what we see next all the more disturbing. Someone hes digging up the area and walking towards the suspected graves. 50 k. Concerning because no one should be taking around her but otoh unlike our colophon final. Question what happens in the playoffs with anger. Are you worried about i think if there is no suggestion the workman has any idea of the significance of the sites but he agrees to stop walk and we inform the Center Management of the areas in pools and its just fine on all the old area on the question the commission told us it was well aware of all the matters we mention and added this as it was conducting a statutory investigation it does not comment on the evidence available to it. But this story. Is very far from over. Foundations of survivors and bereaved families are still waiting for the truth still waiting to find their dead and still waiting for someone to be called to account. The church and the irish states have a lot of questions to answer. You cant be a Healthy Society if youre not willing to look out what you did to thousands and thousands of your own citizens. Is a lot of guilt on my end and i get i think its just a little child inside. The adult knows that you know was it my fault but the little child that either never grew up or never healed doesnt know that. The charge and fear did not bank and any of us. And speaking about a bank. But weve not me shamed about. Well still religious orders weve named in this film for response to the issues weve raised they declined to be interviewed the sisters of the sacred heart said they were cooperating fully with the commission of investigation in a statement they added we provided the service for these women we did not create zante which contributed to such exclusion and pain the sisters of bonsa cool said only that they continued to cooperate with the commission and could not comment ahead of its final report we also asked to pereira county council for a response to the issues weve raised in relation to the angels plot and Sean Ross Abbey it told us that the plan its a message the commission was only an indicative drawing and was not strong to scale the council did not address all questions about the location of the burial plot but did say their investigation had determined no environmental issues. The health of humanity is at stake a Global Pandemic requires a global response. W. H. O. 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And i get a very unfair to get here in doha with a summary of the news on aljazeera for the 2nd day the World Health Organization has reported a record single day rise in global corona virus infections they say 260000 people contracted covert 19 on saturday the total number of deaths since the pandemic began is now past 600000 irans president Hassan Rouhani says that 25000000 people thats more than a quarter of the population they have been infected with corona virus iran has officially reported 271000 cases further restrictions are being enforced around the country