Greystones Orphanage Survivors Inch Closer To Justice

Colm Begley South Beach 18FEB17

t’s been a long and grinding road for the survivors of the Westbank Orphanage as they search for a little recognition and redress.

Colm as a kid…

When we spoke to Colm Begley back in February 2017, it had already been a hard battle for those who were claiming very foul play at the hands of Adeline Mathers, the founder and sole proprietor of the Greystones home for Protestant orphans.

In the ensuing years, politicians have taken up the fight as the protests for justice and national media coverage increased. And now, independent senator Victor Boyhan has spoken out in the Seanad.

Describing himself as “a conduit and a voice” for the former residents of the notorious orphanage, Boyhan stated that the survivors “have a strong case”.

Westbank Orphanage

He called on the Government “to re-open the situation” as those survivors battled to be included in the Mother And Baby Institutions Payment Scheme, a recommendation put forward by an Oireachtas joint committee in 2022 but subsequently rejected. Because the Greystones orphanage was a Protestant-run institution, it fell outside the remit of the compensation scheme set up in 2002 for people who were abused while resident in industrial schools, reformatories and other organisations.

Colm Begley joined Sidney Herdman and Andrew Yates in a three-day campaign of protests last May, which included stops in Bray and Greystones.

Yates and Begley Bray protest 5MAY24

“I have reviewed all the files in relation to this matter,” Boyhan told the Seante. “I have sought external advice. There may be other options that will have to be triggered in the coming days if there is not a favourable response from the Government on the final requests that have been made in the past few days. He then asked junior minister Neale Richmond “what reliefs or alternatives could be available for the past residents of Westbank”.

Richmond explained that Westbank had not been investigated by the payment scheme commission because it operated as a residential children’s home rather than as an institution but the Government “recognises there are people who suffered stigma, trauma and abuse in other institutions” and that there was an “opportunity” to “continue the process the Senator started to right what is an historical injustice”. He then made a personal commitment to take engage with the line Minister and get Westbank included.

Senator Boyhan concluded, “Emotional abuse, physical abuse or sexual abuse in any setting, whether in a State school, this building or anywhere else, is not acceptable and justice has to be done at the end of the day.”