Minister for Education Mary Coughlan said today there are no immediate plans to include former residents of the Bethany Home in the redress scheme for victims of institutional abuse.
Ms Coughlan was speaking in Charleville in north Cork where she was visiting St Joseph’s Foundation and the Holy Family Special School and workshop.
Her comments come after it was revealed this morning that a further 179 graves containing the remains of children who were at the home have been discovered.
The Department of Education has previously said that children were admitted to Bethany on a voluntary basis and therefore do not qualify for the scheme, which was established by the Residential Institutions Redress Board in 2002 to compensate those who suffered abuse in childcare institutions.
However, a letter sent on behalf of Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern to Niall Meehan, who uncovered the unmarked graves, confirms the institution was designated as a place of detention in 1945.
Speaking today, Ms Coughlan admitted Bethany Home has been used as a place of detention.
“I think first of all it is very upsetting that we have found that there have been so many children that have passed away (there). I am advised that, on occasions, some people were sent to the home under a different direction — but in the main it was a place of voluntary detention rather than a place of detention,” Ms Coughlan said.
The Minister said she would prefer to wait and consider the latest developments in the investigation before making any decisions.
“I think it would be appropriate to say it was only occasionally that the home was used as a place of detention but I will have to further examine that with the Minister for Justice,” she said.
“I would be reluctant to move on with this until I would have time to examine the report. I think it is important to say that we are moving through the Redress Board as it stands. It will make its decision within the legislative framework that has been set down,” she added.
A spokeswoman for the Church of Ireland said this afternoon that the institution did not come under the auspices of the church and stressed that no specific religous group owned it. She said that an individual board of trustees was in control of Bethany Home and stated that some religous representatives had served on the board.
A group representing former residents at the home today repeated its call for an inquiry into activities at the institution and called on the Government to include its members under the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.
Derek Leinster of the Bethany House Survivors Group, who was born at the Orwell Road house in 1941 and now lives in Rugby, Warwickshire told the Irish Times he believed former residents had been excluded from the redress scheme because they were a minority grouping.
"The Government don't want to know about us, they treat us like we don't exist. We are Irish citizens and we should be treated equally irrespective of what religion we are.”
Mr Leinster said plans are afoot to establish a memorial to children who died at the Bethany homes.
The Labour Party backed the group's call for an inquiry into the institution and for admittance to the redress scheme for former residents of the home.
"The survivors of Bethany Home have been deprived of the opportunity of having their case heard and of obtaining some justice and redress for the abuse they suffered as young, innocent and vulnerable children," said Labour frontbencher Joe Costello.
"The Government can no longer stand idly by in the face of new revelations about the appalling conditions and the startling number of deaths of children that occurred in Bethany Home in the 1930s and 1940s. A full scale inquiry must be instituted and the Institutional Redress Scheme must be activated for the survivors of Bethany Home," he added.