Good grief!!!, dumped, put in, placed what ever niceties rocks your boat but they were put into a sewage tank was the point I was making, the indifference involved.
And does anyone think this kind of thing didn't happen elsewhere in Ireland and other places by the church/sisters and not known by other authorities.
And when you put bodies of children in to a sewage tank without a proper burial or records kept, they are dumped!!
Did you even read the link past the first paragraph? There's no evidence any child was dumped, put in, placed in or anything else in a sewer tank. You are also jumping to conclusions when you say there are no proper burial records. The mother and baby home had their own chapel and their own priest, and hence their own parish records, which were all handed over to the state when the home was closed. The burial and baptism records of those children are probably lying in a dusty old box in Dublin's national archives.
What those boys discovered in a concrete tank, (which may or may not be a septic tank, depending on which map you read), was probably an old famine grave from the time the workhouse was there. Mass graves are not an unusual find in the grounds of former workhouses in Ireland, (probably in Britain too, the inmates of workhouses weren't exactly given state funerals).
So social services aren't competent enough to determine if children are at risk but this guy is?
He's not the one with power over people's lives, nor the one able to forcibly put up for adoption someone's beloved kid.
But he is the one to facilitate a safe haven for a Mum desperate to keep her kid where she feels that Social Services are playing God, and can decide her child's future in top secret behind closed doors and without the cold light of critical day upon their arguably flawed judgements.
I think it's great that something has been put in place which helps often ill educated inarticulate parents to directly sidestep and hence challenge, Social Services over their taking of children.
He's not the one with power over people's lives, nor the one able to forcibly put up for adoption someone's beloved kid.
But he is the one to facilitate a safe haven for a Mum desperate to keep her kid where she feels that Social Services are playing God, and can decide her child's future in top secret behind closed doors and without the cold light of critical day upon their arguably flawed judgements.
I think it's great that something has been put in place which helps often ill educated inarticulate parents to directly sidestep and hence challenge, Social Services over their taking of children.
I agree as long as it's an educated decision. It's a disgrace in any civilised country that adoption can be forced on anyone. Yet reporting child abuse is not enforced by law for any agency! Something has to change here and quickly. Does anyone know if Tony Blair's disgraceful adoption targets have been stopped now?
What if they accidentally (and regularly) put a child at risk, should social services leave them to it?
If it's regular it can't be accidental, in ignorance yes but not accidental and that shouldn't result in taking the child away from the parent/s in most cases.
Unfortuantely some people are simply unfit parents.
I agree but in most cases unfit doesn't mean not capable, being unable to cope doesn't equate to being a bad parent, it about support, not removing kids in most cases,----but there are really bad parents, I accept this.
I personally not long ago heard a teen Mum getting her 3 year old kid to say F**ck off you C**t and with her girl friends finding the whole thing funny as the kid struggled.
Should that kid be taken away from her--- of course not.
Not out of cruelty or malice, but if the needs of the child are not being met at home, they should look at other options.
But the needs of so many children in this country are not being met by parents generally and in so many ways mainly due to poverty and benefit cuts.
The biggest cruelty being committed towards families is IMO the self serving interests of children's authorities, it's big business and condoned or at least eyes shut firmly by successive governments.
Three meals a day and a bed in a kids home or the safe familiar voice of Mum, rows and baked beans on a slice of bread for dinner, what do you think?
If it's regular it can't be accidental, in ignorance yes but not accidental and that shouldn't result in taking the child away from the parent/s in most cases.
I agree but in most cases unfit doesn't mean not capable, being unable to cope doesn't equate to being a bad parent, it about support, not removing kids in most cases,----but there are really bad parents, I accept this.
I personally not long ago heard a teen Mum getting her 3 year old kid to say F**ck off you C**t and with her girl friends finding the whole thing funny as the kid struggled.
Should that kid be taken away from her--- of course not.
But the needs of so many children in this country are not being met by parents generally and in so many ways mainly due to poverty and benefit cuts.
The biggest cruelty being committed towards families is IMO the self serving interests of children's authorities, it's big business and condoned or at least eyes shut firmly by successive governments.
Three meals a day and a bed in a kids home or the safe familiar voice of Mum, rows and baked beans on a slice of bread for dinner, what do you think?
I agree. Being "taken into care" often means the very opposite and never fills me with confidence.
Did you even read the link past the first paragraph? There's no evidence any child was dumped, put in, placed in or anything else in a sewer tank. You are also jumping to conclusions when you say there are no proper burial records. The mother and baby home had their own chapel and their own priest, and hence their own parish records, which were all handed over to the state when the home was closed. The burial and baptism records of those children are probably lying in a dusty old box in Dublin's national archives.
What those boys discovered in a concrete tank, (which may or may not be a septic tank, depending on which map you read), was probably an old famine grave from the time the workhouse was there. Mass graves are not an unusual find in the grounds of former workhouses in Ireland, (probably in Britain too, the inmates of workhouses weren't exactly given state funerals).
Mmm where are 776 children's bodies? it is known some remains were found in a sewage/septic tank and that is not down to workhouse policies.
And no one has come knocking to ask further questions.
I agree. Being "taken into care" often means the very opposite and never fills me with confidence.
Hi Anne,
And we now know, we always did really most kids in care homes were not well cared for and it hasn't changed much, the child taker or the abuser, not much of a choice is it?
I'm going to get slammed for this but I do think sometimes the abuser is the better option.
And as I have written before the aftercare for kids after leaving local authority care in the UK is utterly atrocious, no more money to be had there I guess.
He's not the one with power over people's lives, nor the one able to forcibly put up for adoption someone's beloved kid.
But he is the one to facilitate a safe haven for a Mum desperate to keep her kid where she feels that Social Services are playing God, and can decide her child's future in top secret behind closed doors and without the cold light of critical day upon their arguably flawed judgements.
I think it's great that something has been put in place which helps often ill educated inarticulate parents to directly sidestep and hence challenge, Social Services over their taking of children.
Of course he is. When a parent who has neglected or abused their child uses his organisation for safe haven, how will he be able to determine if the child is safe or at risk, if he is safeguarding or facilitating abuse? If determining the safety of a child is beyond the competence of social services and the courts, what makes this guy different?
Of course he is. When a parent who has neglected or abused their child uses his organisation for safe haven, how will he be able to determine if the child is safe or at risk, if he is safeguarding or facilitating abuse? If determining the safety of a child is beyond the competence of social services and the courts, what makes this guy different?
No he's not. He has no power whatever over the individuals, who are free to leave at any time.
The difference maker is that the parents are free to make their own decisions. The power of the state is smashed in a heartbeat.
No he's not. He has no power whatever over the individuals, who are free to leave at any time.
The difference maker is that the parents are free to make their own decisions. The power of the state is smashed in a heartbeat.
Children are not free to leave at any time. And yes, the power of the state to protect children from abusive or negligent parents is smashed in a heartbeat by this guy. Go him.
Children are not free to leave at any time. And yes, the power of the state to protect children from abusive or negligent parents is smashed in a heartbeat by this guy. Go him.
You are not even prepared to acknowledge that there are many cases of incorrect judgement by Social Services, nor have you commented on the UK being the only country in Europe to sanction forced adoption.
But the needs of so many children in this country are not being met by parents generally and in so many ways mainly due to poverty and benefit cuts.
True, but many other children have parents with eg alcohol or substance abuse problems, that mean they're simply not looked after properly. Not beaten up, not raped, but nor are they given a fair chance in life. Contrary to what some newspapers suggest, social services don't take kids into are at the first sign of trouble, but after additonal support options are exhausted, all other avenues of family members helping out have been considered and the kid's needs are STILL not being met, then being taken into care is the only decent thing left to do.
Mmm where are 776 children's bodies? it is known some remains were found in a sewage/septic tank and that is not down to workhouse policies.
And no one has come knocking to ask further questions.
It is not known at all whether a) the remains those children found had anything to do with the mother and baby home or b) whether the stone chamber they were in was ever a sewage/septic tank. You're still being misled by the hysterical bollocks which was printed in the first few days after the story broke. Once people actually began to check the facts, a different picture emerged.
The site all around there was excavated in 2012 after council workers digging to lay new water pipes discovered skeletons....
Its long been known in that area anyway that there are mass graves from the 1840s Famine around the place, because it was one of the worst hit areas during that disaster.
Evidence that the structure the boys found bones in was a sewerage tank? Scanty, at best...
As for "nobody knocking to ask further questions", you seem to be unaware that the government set up a Commission of Inquiry into Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes in response to this story, charged with examining such questions as where the children are buried, whether the death toll was higher than the national child mortality rate at the time, were the children abused, did illegal adoptions take place, etc, etc. I suppose most Irish people have taken the novel approach of waiting to see the facts and evidence before indulging in fantasies about nuns dumping babies in sewage tanks. Its a shame The Guardian didn't do the same.
True, but many other children have parents with eg alcohol or substance abuse problems, that mean they're simply not looked after properly. Not beaten up, not raped, but nor are they given a fair chance in life. Contrary to what some newspapers suggest, social services don't take kids into are at the first sign of trouble, but after additonal support options are exhausted, all other avenues of family members helping out have been considered and the kid's needs are STILL not being met, then being taken into care is the only decent thing left to do.
Trouble is that SS are not working like that at all.
Children are being taken and put into care almost randomly.
In one area you can get children who you know are being seriously neglected left with parents, and yet other children whose background isn't perfect but still OK, taken into care.
After a while you wonder if it's because the children who aren't doing too badly at home are easier to place, whereas the ones in a living nightmare are so damaged SS knows they will be giving them problems for years if they take them into care.
True, but many other children have parents with eg alcohol or substance abuse problems, that mean they're simply not looked after properly. Not beaten up, not raped, but nor are they given a fair chance in life. Contrary to what some newspapers suggest, social services don't take kids into are at the first sign of trouble, but after additonal support options are exhausted, all other avenues of family members helping out have been considered and the kid's needs are STILL not being met, then being taken into care is the only decent thing left to do.
And the care system and the state always knows best what is best?
And the care system and the state always knows best what is best?
No, far from it.
The problem here is that the decisions of Social Services are very difficult for the ordinary person to challenge, especially as they are so secretive. Hence the option presented by Brian Rothery is an attractive one to those who otherwise feel powerless to fight the state machine.
The problem here is that the decisions of Social Services are very difficult for the ordinary person to challenge, especially as they are so secretive. Hence the option presented by Brian Rothery is an attractive one to those who otherwise feel powerless to fight the state machine.
To me one of the main points here is that Social Services have powers which massively exceed their competence and intellect.
All through the process of Adoption, Social Services put forward their case as to why the Adoption should go ahead, But it's the Courts that have the Final say on the matter Not Social Services.
All through the process of Adoption, Social Services put forward their case as to why the Adoption should go ahead, But it's the Courts that have the Final say on the matter Not Social Services.
Do you have first hand experience of the court system in these cases ?
No it's not. The important point is the child's safety. If the mother for whatever reason can't provide that then we should consider removing the child. That includes whether it is domestic abuse, physical or mental disability - nine of which may be her fault. Of course we should offer support for them to keep the child first but if that doesn't work out then removing them has to be an option.
I think the process should be open though and there should be an independent appeals process. I concerned about the lack of accountability and oversight.
I agree. I was 'forcibly put up for adoption' (or is that forcibly removed?) and I'm bloody glad about it as well. My 15 year old biological mother was a drunk and a druggie. Her mother, who she lived with, hated me because I was mixed race and her daughter was white.
When I was a baby (under 12 months old) my mother used to go out clubbing and leave me on my own. One time she placed me on the bed and went clubbing and I was found wedged down the side of a bed where I'd rolled over. I was in the paper when she left me on a doorstep, which by the way I'm not legally allowed to read about as I wasn't allowed to know anything about my mother that could identify her when I asked to see my records (which is still the rule now as far as I know).
I met my mother 40 years later. I was prepared to give her another try and attempt to form some kind of relationship with her. The first time I met her again she was drunk and stoned. She tried to tongue kiss me. We didn't meet much more after that.
I met some of the children that she had after me and that hadn't been adopted. She had five of them. Three of them were druggies. One of them told me that when she was too stoned to go and get **** she would get the kids to go and buy them and reward them with cannabis.
The nice lady in the children's home I was in used to take me to her house from time to time as she felt sorry for me (she was about 19) and it was her parents that eventually adopted me and she became my sister. She's now very high up in Social Services and I know from speaking to her all the things that have to happen before a child is put up for adoption and she, at least, works very hard with the parents to prevent that from happening. She's currently working very hard with a couple of heroin addict parents to prevent their child from being adopted.
However, having been in the system myself, I'm also aware that there's a few arseholes in SS but then there is in every vocation? I'm bloody glad my mother couldn't run off to another country and evade social services.
I agree. I was 'forcibly put up for adoption' (or is that forcibly removed?) and I'm bloody glad about it as well. My 15 year old biological mother was a drunk and a druggie. Her mother, who she lived with, hated me because I was mixed race and her daughter was white.
When I was a baby (under 12 months old) my mother used to go out clubbing and leave me on my own. One time she placed me on the bed and went clubbing and I was found wedged down the side of a bed where I'd rolled over. I was in the paper when she left me on a doorstep, which by the way I'm not legally allowed to read about as I wasn't allowed to know anything about my mother that could identify her when I asked to see my records (which is still the rule now as far as I know).
I met my mother 40 years later. I was prepared to give her another try and attempt to form some kind of relationship with her. The first time I met her again she was drunk and stoned. She tried to tongue kiss me. We didn't meet much more after that.
I met some of the children that she had after me and that hadn't been adopted. She had five of them. Three of them were druggies. One of them told me that when she was too stoned to go and get **** she would get the kids to go and buy them and reward them with cannabis.
The nice lady in the children's home I was in used to take me to her house from time to time as she felt sorry for me (she was about 19) and it was her parents that eventually adopted me and she became my sister. She's now very high up in Social Services and I know from speaking to her all the things that have to happen before a child is put up for adoption and she, at least, works very hard with the parents to prevent that from happening. She's currently working very hard with a couple of heroin addict parents to prevent their child from being adopted.
However, having been in the system myself, I'm also aware that there's a few arseholes in SS but then there is in every vocation? I'm bloody glad my mother couldn't run off to another country and evade social services.
Sorry for long post
Thank you for your very interesting post, Sorry about your biological siblings.
I'm bloody glad my mother couldn't run off to another country and evade social services.
I'm very glad you were adopted by a loving family and things worked out for you.
A 15 year old drunk and drug addicted girl with a young child wouldn't take long to come to the attention of social services in Ireland either.
Btw, your mother could have run off to Ireland with you if she'd been in any way bothered about evading social services in the UK. What was stopping her? Its not like UK citizens ever needed this charity's permission to travel to the ROI. If you read their website, they're not financially assisting anyone to move here either, (the advice they give is that you'll need at least £1,500 to get accommodation, and a source of income because social welfare entitlements can take up to two years). What they offer is legal advice, and lobbying of politicians for various changes in the laws of all four countries in which they operate.
Comments
Did you even read the link past the first paragraph? There's no evidence any child was dumped, put in, placed in or anything else in a sewer tank. You are also jumping to conclusions when you say there are no proper burial records. The mother and baby home had their own chapel and their own priest, and hence their own parish records, which were all handed over to the state when the home was closed. The burial and baptism records of those children are probably lying in a dusty old box in Dublin's national archives.
What those boys discovered in a concrete tank, (which may or may not be a septic tank, depending on which map you read), was probably an old famine grave from the time the workhouse was there. Mass graves are not an unusual find in the grounds of former workhouses in Ireland, (probably in Britain too, the inmates of workhouses weren't exactly given state funerals).
He's not the one with power over people's lives, nor the one able to forcibly put up for adoption someone's beloved kid.
But he is the one to facilitate a safe haven for a Mum desperate to keep her kid where she feels that Social Services are playing God, and can decide her child's future in top secret behind closed doors and without the cold light of critical day upon their arguably flawed judgements.
I think it's great that something has been put in place which helps often ill educated inarticulate parents to directly sidestep and hence challenge, Social Services over their taking of children.
Secret courts, forced adoptions, no doubt future generations will be condemning us for these barbarities in the same way.
I agree as long as it's an educated decision. It's a disgrace in any civilised country that adoption can be forced on anyone. Yet reporting child abuse is not enforced by law for any agency! Something has to change here and quickly. Does anyone know if Tony Blair's disgraceful adoption targets have been stopped now?
I personally not long ago heard a teen Mum getting her 3 year old kid to say F**ck off you C**t and with her girl friends finding the whole thing funny as the kid struggled.
Should that kid be taken away from her--- of course not.
But the needs of so many children in this country are not being met by parents generally and in so many ways mainly due to poverty and benefit cuts.
The biggest cruelty being committed towards families is IMO the self serving interests of children's authorities, it's big business and condoned or at least eyes shut firmly by successive governments.
Three meals a day and a bed in a kids home or the safe familiar voice of Mum, rows and baked beans on a slice of bread for dinner, what do you think?
I agree. Being "taken into care" often means the very opposite and never fills me with confidence.
And no one has come knocking to ask further questions.
And we now know, we always did really most kids in care homes were not well cared for and it hasn't changed much, the child taker or the abuser, not much of a choice is it?
I'm going to get slammed for this but I do think sometimes the abuser is the better option.
And as I have written before the aftercare for kids after leaving local authority care in the UK is utterly atrocious, no more money to be had there I guess.
Of course he is. When a parent who has neglected or abused their child uses his organisation for safe haven, how will he be able to determine if the child is safe or at risk, if he is safeguarding or facilitating abuse? If determining the safety of a child is beyond the competence of social services and the courts, what makes this guy different?
No he's not. He has no power whatever over the individuals, who are free to leave at any time.
The difference maker is that the parents are free to make their own decisions. The power of the state is smashed in a heartbeat.
Indeed so.
Children are not free to leave at any time. And yes, the power of the state to protect children from abusive or negligent parents is smashed in a heartbeat by this guy. Go him.
You are not even prepared to acknowledge that there are many cases of incorrect judgement by Social Services, nor have you commented on the UK being the only country in Europe to sanction forced adoption.
True, but many other children have parents with eg alcohol or substance abuse problems, that mean they're simply not looked after properly. Not beaten up, not raped, but nor are they given a fair chance in life. Contrary to what some newspapers suggest, social services don't take kids into are at the first sign of trouble, but after additonal support options are exhausted, all other avenues of family members helping out have been considered and the kid's needs are STILL not being met, then being taken into care is the only decent thing left to do.
It is not known at all whether a) the remains those children found had anything to do with the mother and baby home or b) whether the stone chamber they were in was ever a sewage/septic tank. You're still being misled by the hysterical bollocks which was printed in the first few days after the story broke. Once people actually began to check the facts, a different picture emerged.
The site all around there was excavated in 2012 after council workers digging to lay new water pipes discovered skeletons....
http://historicgraves.com/blog/miscellanea/probable-workhouse-famine-burials-tuam
Its long been known in that area anyway that there are mass graves from the 1840s Famine around the place, because it was one of the worst hit areas during that disaster.
Evidence that the structure the boys found bones in was a sewerage tank? Scanty, at best...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/06/09/that-story-about-irish-babies-in-a-septic-tank-is-a-media-hoax/
As for "nobody knocking to ask further questions", you seem to be unaware that the government set up a Commission of Inquiry into Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes in response to this story, charged with examining such questions as where the children are buried, whether the death toll was higher than the national child mortality rate at the time, were the children abused, did illegal adoptions take place, etc, etc. I suppose most Irish people have taken the novel approach of waiting to see the facts and evidence before indulging in fantasies about nuns dumping babies in sewage tanks. Its a shame The Guardian didn't do the same.
Trouble is that SS are not working like that at all.
Children are being taken and put into care almost randomly.
In one area you can get children who you know are being seriously neglected left with parents, and yet other children whose background isn't perfect but still OK, taken into care.
After a while you wonder if it's because the children who aren't doing too badly at home are easier to place, whereas the ones in a living nightmare are so damaged SS knows they will be giving them problems for years if they take them into care.
And the care system and the state always knows best what is best?
No, far from it.
The problem here is that the decisions of Social Services are very difficult for the ordinary person to challenge, especially as they are so secretive. Hence the option presented by Brian Rothery is an attractive one to those who otherwise feel powerless to fight the state machine.
All through the process of Adoption, Social Services put forward their case as to why the Adoption should go ahead, But it's the Courts that have the Final say on the matter Not Social Services.
Do you have first hand experience of the court system in these cases ?
I don't work for the Courts i work along side Social Services.
I agree. I was 'forcibly put up for adoption' (or is that forcibly removed?) and I'm bloody glad about it as well. My 15 year old biological mother was a drunk and a druggie. Her mother, who she lived with, hated me because I was mixed race and her daughter was white.
When I was a baby (under 12 months old) my mother used to go out clubbing and leave me on my own. One time she placed me on the bed and went clubbing and I was found wedged down the side of a bed where I'd rolled over. I was in the paper when she left me on a doorstep, which by the way I'm not legally allowed to read about as I wasn't allowed to know anything about my mother that could identify her when I asked to see my records (which is still the rule now as far as I know).
I met my mother 40 years later. I was prepared to give her another try and attempt to form some kind of relationship with her. The first time I met her again she was drunk and stoned. She tried to tongue kiss me. We didn't meet much more after that.
I met some of the children that she had after me and that hadn't been adopted. She had five of them. Three of them were druggies. One of them told me that when she was too stoned to go and get **** she would get the kids to go and buy them and reward them with cannabis.
The nice lady in the children's home I was in used to take me to her house from time to time as she felt sorry for me (she was about 19) and it was her parents that eventually adopted me and she became my sister. She's now very high up in Social Services and I know from speaking to her all the things that have to happen before a child is put up for adoption and she, at least, works very hard with the parents to prevent that from happening. She's currently working very hard with a couple of heroin addict parents to prevent their child from being adopted.
However, having been in the system myself, I'm also aware that there's a few arseholes in SS but then there is in every vocation? I'm bloody glad my mother couldn't run off to another country and evade social services.
Sorry for long post
Thank you for your very interesting post, Sorry about your biological siblings.
I'm very glad you were adopted by a loving family and things worked out for you.
A 15 year old drunk and drug addicted girl with a young child wouldn't take long to come to the attention of social services in Ireland either.
Btw, your mother could have run off to Ireland with you if she'd been in any way bothered about evading social services in the UK. What was stopping her? Its not like UK citizens ever needed this charity's permission to travel to the ROI. If you read their website, they're not financially assisting anyone to move here either, (the advice they give is that you'll need at least £1,500 to get accommodation, and a source of income because social welfare entitlements can take up to two years). What they offer is legal advice, and lobbying of politicians for various changes in the laws of all four countries in which they operate.