Wexford councillors offer support to hunger strikers following conclusion of 51-day protest outside Dáil

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Sinn Féin councillors from Wexford have offered their support to the survivors of industrial and reformatory schools following the conclusion of a 51-day hunger strike outside Dáil Éireann. Mary Dunlevy Greene, Mary Donovan, Maurice Patton O’Connell, and Miriam Moriarty Owens had taken up residence outside government offices in September in an effort to secure Health Amendment Act (HAA) medical cards and state pensions for the estimated 4,500 people who were forced to work as children while in state-care.

However, following a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Monday evening, the strike was called off with the protestors accepting assurances regarding the issuing of medical cards to all survivors. While negotiations for a full contributory state pension are ongoing, an apology to all those who endured industrial school abuse is to be issued by the Taoiseach.

And at the November meeting of Wexford County Council (WCC), Sinn Féin’s Tom Forde and Aoife Rose O’Brien expressed their solidarity with the protestors.

“We visited them at the weekend and they were in a very difficult situation,” said Councillor Forde. “The oldest protestor is 73 years old and she went 51 days without food, surviving on tea, coffee and electrolytes. There are approximately 4,500 survivors still alive and they’ve never really got justice. It’s heart breaking to talk to them and I say that as someone who had an immediate family member in that system, my own mother. It’s shameful that this hasn’t been made more of a priority by the Irish government.”

Cllr O’Brien also had an immediate family member who survived the industrial school system and described the lengthy battle to receive recognition from the state as “disgraceful”.

“They have had 26 years of denial, refusal, and neglect from the state, with lies put into the public domain about them,” she said. “I urge people to read up on this because there are thousands of families, many of them in our county, who are directly affected by this. We really should do everything we can to support them.”