File photo of a mother holding a baby Image: Shutterstock/New Africa File photo of a mother holding a baby Image: Shutterstock/New Africa A NUMBER OF survivors of mother and baby homes have called on the Department of Children to handle their Data Subject Access Requests as a matter of urgency.
Some survivors have raised concerns about how SARs they submitted to the Commission are being handled by the department. Her and her boyfriend wanted to keep the baby but their families did not support this and put pressure on them to give their baby away. “They had it all arranged that the child was going to be adopted, before the child was ever born, that was the common way they did things.”In Bessborough, the nuns changed her name and made clear from the outset that was there to pay for her ‘sins’.
Mary hadn’t signed the adoption papers at this point and didn’t plan to, but her father tracked her down and showed up. He demanded that she sign the papers. “I went out and I got in the car with the priest … the final adoption papers were signed in the back of a car. After contacting the adoption agency in question, they were able to find Mary’s child within a week. Mary and her child lived about 45 minutes away from each other in the northwest of the country.
As was the case with several survivors, Mary received an email in late February stating that the Commission had “received a very large number of such requests in the last few weeks”. She has been asked to provide a form of ID and proof of address in order for her SAR to be processed. She said the Commission had already confirmed who she was so she does not understand why she has to re-submit information, but will do so in order to progress her request.
Derek Leinster, who was born in the Bethany Home in Dublin in 1941, has also raised concerns about the SAR process. When asked by The Journal about the concerns raised by survivors, a spokesperson for the department said that “a guide on how to request access to personal information is available on the department’s website”.
Source: Real Estate Daily Report (realestatedailyreport.net)
Sorry but parents were also to blame,we can’t put it all on the church,
It’s just awful what the Catholic Church was allowed to get away with.