Only 6% of the estimated 13,000 Mother and Baby home survivors in Britain have applied for compensation because of a "great fear" about their access to social welfare payments.
Any mother who spent one night or more in a Mother and Baby home is entitled to financial compensation from the Irish State. Children who spent more than 180 days are also entitled to a payment.
So far, 7,152 applications have been made, the vast majority of which were made by people living in Ireland.
11% of the applications were from people residing in the United Kingdom; however, there is concern that thousands have declined to apply because doing so would jeopardise access to means tested social welfare benefits.
One such woman is Rosemary Adaser, who moved to England in 1976.
She was born in a Mother and Baby Institute and was also sent to one when she got pregnant at 16
“Because she lives in England, there's been this unique financial penalty hanging over her head and 13,000 other people like her,” her lawyer, Caoilfhionn Gallagher explained on The Claire Byrne Show.
“Which meant that if they accepted their compensation, they would then potentially lose their means tested benefits, which many of them rely upon.
“They'd be subject to very stringent tax rules and also they'd lose financial support in relation to social care.”
However, in the past few weeks, the British Government has agreed to disregard the payments when assessing entitlement to social welfare payments.
It is, Ms Adaser said, “fabulous news” for victims.
“I think it's really important to emphasise how many people are behind this. From Philomena's Law, tabled by Liam Conlon MP, then you had all the Irish centres up and down the land in Britain,” she explained.
“I remember that the Irish in Britain AGM last November, I literally gatecrashed because I wanted everybody to understand that while it's great to have people advocating on our behalf, actually we need, as survivors, we need to say something ourselves.”
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Ms Adaser added that her twin brother still lives in Ireland, has accepted the money and is “tickety boo”.
While many people in Britain who lived in Mother and Baby homes have not applied because they fear their social welfare payments will be reduced.
“Most of us are not accepting it because of this great fear,” she said.
“And we've recently heard that there's only 770 people in the UK have taken up the compensation offer.”
'It wasn't easy'
Ms Adaser describes herself as a “graduate of Irish industrial schools”, whose childhood was extremely difficult.
“My brother and I were separated, it wasn't easy,” she recalled.
“We were six years old - and there's no notice - all I recall is being put into an ambulance, being driven from Dublin.
“We were in the Navan Road, St. Patrick's, then being driven down to Kilkenny.
“The ambulance doors open, told to get out and you stood there in front of this huge building.
“And your twin brother, your only family is driven off somewhere else; I spent 10 years in Kilkenny.”
Ms Adaser said life in Kilkenny was “pretty awful” and when she got pregnant at 16, she was sent to another institution where her young son was taken from her.
Afterwards, she was taken in by a couple, Brian and Mary Rothery, who changed her life.
“They kind of rebuilt me, I was very damaged when I left this place,” she said.
“I didn't talk for about six months.”
A new life in Britain
Eventually, Ms Adaser got a job in the GPO but decided to leave Ireland because, as a person of colour, she felt that she simply “stood out” too much.
“Most of my peers could blend into Irish society, I couldn't,” she recalled.
Moving to London was a turning point and she “had a ball”, in part because she people of colour were not a rarity there.
“The other advantage I had is there was there was a lot of anti-Irish sentiment in London at the time,” she added.
“But since nobody believed I was Irish, I got away with that.
“Every so often there might be a kind of a, ‘I hear a bit of an accent there’. And I'd be going, ‘It's Canadian, keep going’.”
Anyone who thinks they are entitled to Mother and Baby Home compensation can apply here.
Main image: Mother and Baby home survivor Rosemary Adaser. Image by: Newstalk.
