The Taoiseach has insisted he in “no way” sought to diminish the role of the Church or the State in the treatment of women and their children in mother and baby homes.
Micheál Martin made the comments in response to People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett who described the mother and baby homes report and the Government’s response as a “sham, an insult and a whitewash”.
Mr Martin said: “My remarks and my statement yesterday in no way sought to diminish the role of the churches or the State and any reading of them would confirm that.
“I spoke of the perverse moral code overseen by the Church that, in my view, was responsible for this in terms of its attitude to sexual morality which was at the heart of forcing women and mothers in particular into mother and baby homes.”
“I equally believe the State clearly failed,” he added.
The Taoiseach described what happened at the homes as “shameful and shocking”.
Mr Boyd Barrett accused the Taoiseach during Leaders’ Questions of “very consciously” seeking to diminish the culpability and disperse the responsibility of the institutions of the Church and State.
The Taoiseach is due to apologise on behalf of the State to survivors of homes for unmarried mothers and their children.
An independent report published on Tuesday found the institutions for women who fell pregnant out of wedlock produced high levels of infant mortality, misogyny and stigmatisation of some of society’s most vulnerable.
Mr Boyd Barrett told the Dail: “The report and official political commentary coming from Government … look like a sham, an insult and a whitewash of the gross crimes that were committed against thousands of women and infants.
“The report and some of your comments [on Tuesday] seemed to very consciously seek to diminish the culpability of the institutions of the Church and State, and disperse responsibility for the crimes that were committed on to society as a whole.”
Mr Boyd Barrett said there was a “systematic attempt” not to treat survivors’ testimonies as evidence of abuse.
“Some of the passages in the report are offensive, quite honestly, in trying to shift the blame away from the institutions of Church and State, in trying to create a hierarchy of severity of abuse between one institution and another, and of the constant refrain, which is offensive, of there being no evidence,” he said.
“Is 9,000 children dying in proportions way beyond the number dying in society as a whole not in itself evidence of abuse? Was it not an imprisonment sentence for every single woman who was forced to go in there? No evidence, they say, of illegal adoptions when we have evidence.
“There seems to be a systematic attempt to not treat as evidence the testimonies of the survivors.”
But Mr Martin said it was “wrong” to claim a systematic approach was being taken. “There’s not. I had no involvement in the commission, good, bad or indifferent,” he said.
“The commission was independent,” he added. “No politician had any hand, act or role in the deliberations of the commission itself. I think you need to accept that.”
Mr Martin also said the report and its recommendations were “very clear” that the mothers should not have ended up in these homes and that the government’s response to the recommendations would be “survivor-led”.
