iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Sharing with permission a comment from a member of our peer support group which sums up how many affected people will be feeling about the DNA Working Group Report.

Claire, thank you for sharing this. I will confess I actually teared up with frustration reading this. The idea that we, as affected people, are still not seen as competent enough to handle our DNA results, or balance in our heads our two families, without guidance from an 'all wise and knowing' entity like Tusla is beyond insulting. After all that's been fought for in the past few decades, we're still seen as incapable of handling things on our own, when in fact our group experts could run circles around Tusla, AAl and the government.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

1/2 The Dept of Children, Disability & Equality has launched a public consultation on changes to the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 relating to illegal birth registrations. The survey is open to all so please get involved if it's of relevance to you: www.gov.ie/en/departmen...

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

1) It has come to my attention that David Quinn, writing in a Catholic publication and relying on the McAleese Report’s flawed findings, has made inaccurate claims regarding both the extent of abuse and the length of confinement experienced by women in the Magdalene Laundries.

A graveyard with rows of black crosses. There are also larger statues and stone crosses throughout.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

1/2 Please support @carmelcantwell.bsky.social and the Bessboro Support Group, at their vigil on 8th March at 1pm in protest at the Cork City Council decision to grant planning permission for development of the Bessboro site.

Poster with details of Bessboro Vigil, Sunday 8th March at 1pm
The text reads as follows:
The Bessboro Mother & Baby 'home' Support Group are protesting against the development of 140 apartments at Bessborough which has been granted permission by Cork City Council Planning.

If this development goes ahead, it will set a precedent and is likely to lead to further larger developments in the grounds of Bessborough getting planning permission also, which will change the landscape of the whole area.
923 children born in Bessboro died and the burial places of
859 of them are not recorded, but the majority are likely to be buried on the grounds
The remaining undeveloped 60 acres of the Bessborough estate should be preserved as a National Site of Conscience to remember and honour all those that died, as well as the 18,706 women and children that were incarcerated here.
They were forgotten for so long!
In addition to being a place of remembrance, the 60 acre site would be an invaluable amenity for the local community.
We will be appealing the planning decision.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

8) 13 data breaches occurred during the period covered, involving 'incorrect' info/docs uploaded/posted & one email was sent to an incorrect recipient. 'Appropriate actions were taken to mitigate against future risks' but no detail on how it happened in the first place or what actions were taken.

Screenshot of page showing data breaches

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

7) 32 complaints were received in the period of time covered by the annual report. This shouldn't be interpreted as an indicator of satisfaction with the scheme. Rather, it speaks to a deep lack of empowerment amongst affected people, further evidenced by the v low number of FOIs (5) & SARs (1).

In the period from 20th March 2024 to 31st December 2024, the Payment Scheme received one Subject Access Request (SAR) and five Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

6) 🚨The reasons for requesting reviews & appeals aren't provided in the annual report (nor are they provided to affected people). We've obtained (some of) these via PQ (h/t @ciaranahern.bsky.social): www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/q.... Why is this information not available as a matter of course?

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

5) The low number of appeals is deeply shocking. Just nine (!) people have requested an appeal & only two of these individuals have had a change to the outcome. NB: ❌ An appeal can only be requested if a review has been done ❌ A review can only be carried out in a limited number of cases

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

4) The number of requests for review is also low (433) & the outcome of these requests is not at all clear. I believe that 'NoD [notice of determination] issued' means there has been a change in the original decision, in which case just 76 people (17.6%) have had a successful outcome.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

3) The number of applications is shockingly low (just shy of 6k), with awards paid to just 58% of these applicants.

Screenshot of graph with the above figures

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

2) The 'values' of the scheme (⬇️) are contradictory in the extreme: Inclusivity? Equality? Human rights? ℹ️ The scheme is not human rights compliant. Thousands are excluded from even applying to the scheme & not all applicants can request a review. (For ℹ️ see clannproject.org/wp-content/u...)

Screenshot of annual report showing the scheme's purported 'values':

Kindness and service excellence
Respect and inclusivity
Equality & human rights
Integrity & commitment

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

1) Minister Norma Foley has finally published the 'Mother & Baby Institutions Payment Scheme' annual report for 2024. Just a few initial observations: ❓It's Feb 2026 - why the delay in publication? 📖 It's just 22 pages long, which means it's low on details. This is deeply troubling.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

1) I see that Mary Hanafin is considering a run for the Áras. A reminder that in 2001 MH tried to bring in legislation that would have seen adopted people fined or imprisoned for the ‘crime’ of contacting their mothers. See (2) for details.

If I could contest it, I would happily do that’ – former minister Mary Hanafin ‘in the mix’ for Fianna Fáil presidential election nomination

(8) It will be a summary offence for an information recipient, or someone acting on his or her behalf to make written, verbal, electronic or personal contact, or attempt to contact or harass a person who has lodged a Contact Veto and a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding twelve months, shall apply in the case of a person or persons found guilty of such an offence.

2001 article featuring a photo of Mary Hanafin. The headline reads: Adopted people to get access to details of birth mothers

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

3) Second, govt has announced that affected people can deposit their testimonies, papers & artefacts with the National Archives & the National Museum. I can’t overstate how important this is (🚨& I hope we don’t have a fight on our hands to ensure that this process is inclusive)

A process will be finalised to allow survivors and affected persons to share their lived experience – and/or physical items - with the National Museum, if they wish to do so.
A programme will be designed to capture and gather survivor’s personal statements or records as part of the institutional records of the National Archives or to deposit them as private papers.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

1) 🚨Today we’ve had 3 significant developments in the area of institutional & forced family separation abuses. First, our calls for representation of affected people on the National Centre for Research & Remembrance Steering Committee (& others) have finally been heard.

The Steering Group – which is responsible for developing the overall vision of the Centre - will be expanded to include four survivor representatives. These representatives will be full members of the Steering Group, alongside the Special Advocate for Survivors and members from Government departments and agencies. An open call for expressions of interest to join the Steering Group will be issued shortly.
The National Museum will establish dedicated panels of survivors and affected persons, to inform the development of the museum element of the National Centre.
There will be a central role for survivors in the governance of the National Centre, once it opens.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

5) 154 of the exhumed women were subsequently reinterred at Glasnevin on 11/09/93 at a private ceremony. Just 2 days later on 13/09/93 members of the Srs of Our Lady of Charity were signing CRO docs to establish Ruhama.

Extract from Company Registration application for Ruhama

Signatures of religious sisters on the Company Registration application for Ruhama.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

2) Some facts about the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity (OLC), co-founders of Ruhama. In 1993, 155 women were exhumed from High Park Magdalene Laundry to make way for a property development. 🚨154 women were cremated, in many cases 2 to a coffin, all in aid of cutting costs.

Page 1 of letter from Masseys Undertakers to Eugene F. Collins, solicitors for the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

To exhume the said bodies from High Park, have them cremated and reinterred in Glasnevin Cemetery for the sum of £ 30,000.

[Short section removed to fit relevant text within word limit]

The charge for supplying coffins is £ 7,750. These will number 133
approximately (@ £52.63 each) and will, where necessary, be of sufficient dimensions to accommodate disinterred damaged coffins within them. The coffins will be simple with no embellishments and suitable for cremation .

Page 2 of letter from Masseys Undertakers to Eugene F. Collins, solicitors for the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

The difference in cost between earth burial for all and cremation is so great that, bearing in mind that your clients wish to keep costs to a minimum, the former is not really on the cards. I understand from the Crematorium authorities that the considered choice includes cremation for all with interment of ashes in two new graves. The cost for this is £ 6,750.
Transport, insurance, transport personnel, administration, security and incidental costs are £3,500. We would use a Transit van or similar for the transportation to Glasnevin.
We would be in a position to begin on receipt of two weeks notice, and we anticipate that the work will take about two weeks.

The Secretary of Glasnevin Crematorium...has been in touch with us concerning the price he quoted for the original tender. ... They had planned that all remains buried before 1948 would be cremated with 3 in each coffin - the reasoning being that after forty five years there would be very little remaining - and that they could manage 2 per coffin from 1948 to 1965 with the remainder in single coffins. Unfortunately, this was not achieved in practice due to the attending Dublin Corporation observers insisting on more coffins being used. A little more than a hundred were, therefore, presented to the crematorium, resulting in their having to cremate more than 40 more than they had been told.
The original charge was based on an agreed price of £112 to include cremation and urn. 60 times this number gives us £6,720. This means that they are at a loss of four and half thousand pounds. He is now applying for the difference and after speaking with. rum he has agreed to reduce it to £2,000.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Not surprised at the outcome of these ‘negotiations’. Meanwhile, for those most affected, nothing changes—thousands excluded from ‘redress’ & countless other ongoing rights violations. The State needs to grasp the nettle & stop allowing religious orders to act with impunity.

Screenshot of my old Twitter post from 2023 which reads as follows:

Apart from the myriad obvious concerns it’s instructive to note that there are ‘negotiations’.

Affected people—the injured parties in this process—have been afforded no such luxury with the legislation Minister @rodericogorman has been rushing through at breakneck speed.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I received via FOI the redress scheme’s Standard Operating Procedure for record searches. 🚨There are multiple redactions. So not only do countless civil servants have a level of access to records about us that we can only dream of, we’re not even afforded transparency re how they find them!

Screenshot of Standard Operating Procedure showing redactions

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

2/3 However, I'd encourage a more nuanced characterisation than that shown in the excerpt below. I believe it's important to understand the context within which mothers sometimes say 'no' to contact & to acknowledge that the 'no' isn't always permanent. See: www.thejournal.ie/readme/irish...

Some adoptees have bravely ventured on the rocky road of discovery to trace their lineage. While many have enjoyed joyful reunions, others faced the harsh reality of cold rejection by biological parents unwilling to recognise the legacies of the past. Meanwhile, graveside plots have greeted others where their story abruptly ends.

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

4) Furthermore: 🚨Ineligible people are blocked from even applying 🚨The scheme's administrators are circumventing applicants' wishes regarding communication 🚨Letters of determination do not even afford applicants the courtesy of providing a name & signature (see 📷).

A screenshot of a letter from the redress scheme which comes from the 'Chief Deciding Officer' but there is neither a name nor a signature

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

ℹ️ If you’re affected by adoption in/from Ireland, and/or the Magdalene Laundries, Mother & Baby Homes and related ‘historical’ abuses, resources are available at: adoption.ie/help

A yellow question mark surrounded by lots of grey question marks

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Dr Claire McGettrick Born Lorraine Hughes @cmcgettrick.bsky.social · 08/10/2023

Emerging briefly from my PhD bunker to express firm support for trans people, TENI & for BelongTo’s vital work. Media orgs need to take a long hard look at themselves & the role they are playing in the relentless persecution of trans folk. #TransRightsAreHumanRights

Screenshot of donation acknowledgment from Teni

Screenshot of donation acknowledgment from BelongTo

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