O Caolain wrong on Regina Coeli hostel, says Taoiseach

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has warned deputies that it is "unfair and unreasonable" for them to suggest to a woman protesting outside the Dáil, that the hostel she claims she was abused in can be included within the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Act.

Mr Ahern said 30 TDs had asked him questions about the plight of Marie Therese O'Loughlin who has slept outside the Dáil and has maintained a protest at Leinster House for months in a failed bid to have the Morning Star mother and baby hostel included in the legislation, to provide redress to people who were abused in residential state institutions.

The Morning Star hostel is also known as the Regina Coeli hostel and Mr Ahern told Sinn Féin's Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin that hostels "are specifically excluded in the legislation passed by this House. That is the point and all the other points are irrelevant." But Mr Ó Caoláin, who accused the Taoiseach of "kicking to touch" on the issue, said more than nine months ago the Department of Health had asked the Department of Education to consider including the hostel in the legislation.

Mr Ó Caoláin said he received correspondence from the Taoiseach, including a letter from the Department of Health, which states clearly the hostel "was subject to inspection and regulation by the Department of Health and Children. It states that a search of files related to the Regina Coeli hostel revealed there was evidence of an inspection or regulatory function by the department in regard to the hostel."

He added: "The letter also states that as far back as April 2005, the Department of Health and Children asked the Department of Education and Science to consider including this institution under the Residential Institutions Redress Act". He said there was a "scandal here where justice is being denied to an unfortunate woman".

But Mr Ahern reiterated: "It is not good enough that one was in an institution under the Act, one must have been abused in an institution. That is the kernel of the cases. Marie Therese O'Loughlin was in another institution that is listed."

Mr Ó Caoláin insisted Ms O'Loughlin spent 4½ years in the hostel because she was too young to be placed in any other institution at that time. He said there was a bounden responsibility on the Taoiseach to amend the legislation to allow this institution to be included.

In a sharp exchange Mr Ahern insisted there were no inspections of the Regina Coeli hostel, the section of it that was a mother and baby home, and "no amount of emotion or shouting will change that position".