Máiréad Enright: Philomena's Law is welcome — but survivors are still being let down
Philomena Lee at Dublin's Mansion House for the Pride of Ireland awards in 2014. British Labour MP Liam Conlon named his bill 'Philomena's Law' in her honour. Picture: Niall Carson/PA
Last week, British Labour MP Liam Conlon introduced a bill in the House of Commons to facilitate the development of what he calls ‘Philomena’s Law’.
The bill’s title honours Philomena Lee, who spent three years in Sean Ross Abbey, giving birth to her son Anthony there in 1952. Conlon estimates that some 13,000 people eligible for redress under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme live in Britain.
Only 5% have so far applied to the scheme. Many survivors receiving means-tested social welfare benefits have not applied because they worry that they will lose income if they accept a lump-sum redress payment.
In other words, the poorest Irish survivors of mother and baby institutions living in Britain may be the least likely to access redress.
If we focus on older survivors, relevant means-tested benefits include pension credit, which provides a supplement to those living on a low income, and housing benefit, which helps impoverished pensioners to cover their rent.
These are not generous benefits.
Pension credit ordinarily tops an individual’s weekly income up to a guaranteed minimum of £218.15 (€259).
Weekly pension credit payments may be reduced if an individual has more than £10,000 in savings.
This means that a lump-sum redress payment would be gradually eaten up, as the survivor’s benefits are reduced in proportion to the size of the lump sum while they continue to live on a punishingly low income.
As for housing benefit, an individual receiving a lump sum of £16,000 or more might lose their entitlement to that benefit altogether.
Survivors living in Britain must tell social services of any changes to their financial circumstances.
In theory, it is possible to avoid these means-testing rules by placing any redress payment in a personal injury trust.
This is a separate fund managed by trustees for the survivor’s benefit. The Magdalene Restorative Justice Ex-Gratia Scheme allowed for a payment of up to £1,000 to cover the cost of establishing such a trust.
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme currently includes no such provision.
In addition, some organisations working for Irish survivors in Britain worry that it is not clear that these trusts can be used to protect payments except where they are intended to compensate for a physical or psychological injury. The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is based on a report of a commission of investigation which did not recognise those abuses.
If passed, Conlon’s bill would require the British government to report to parliament on the merits of introducing an “indefinite capital disregard” in respect of payments from the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.
In January 2022, similar provisions were introduced for people receiving compensation under schemes set up for survivors of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and parts of London.
A disregard would mean that payments under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme would not be taken into account when determining eligibility for means-tested social welfare payments or care services.
It would bring the treatment of survivors who emigrated to Britain into line with the policy the Government applies to those who stayed in or returned to Ireland.
The bill is a welcome intervention.
However, it should not be allowed to distract from the structural issues which have put impoverished British-resident survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby homes in such a difficult position.
Britain’s benefits system is notoriously punitive. Many Irish survivors of mother and baby institutions live not only with the individual impacts of abuse, but with the ongoing effects of years of austerity.
The Mother and Baby Homes Payment Scheme is also, in itself, inadequate.
Earlier this month, it emerged that the Mother and Baby Homes Payment Scheme has spent just 7% of its budget, suggesting that it is not effectively responding to survivors’ needs, wherever they live.
Its eligibility criteria exclude large numbers of people affected by forced adoption and boarding out. Successful applicants may receive payments as low as €5,000.
They may not be affected by means-testing at all, but the payment will do little to relieve poverty or poor living conditions.
Finally, it is a challenge to celebrate the British parliament’s support for redress for Irish survivors of mother and baby homes when there has been no state apology or redress for those affected by forced family separation in equivalent English institutions. These include women from Irish families.
Both Ireland and Britain have some distance to travel to make amends for the past.
So far, neither country has done enough.
- Máiréad Enright is professor of feminist legal studies at Birmingham Law School, the University of Birmingham
