Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern was involved in the mediation process aimed at ending a hunger strike by four industrial school survivors outside Leinster House last year.
In 1999, Mr Ahern apologised on behalf of the State to victims of institutional child abuse.
Internal correspondence from the Department of Education and Youth confirms the former Fianna Fáil leader met survivors on October 4th.
The 51-day protest, which took place from September 21st to November 11th, ended after mediation commenced between the Government and the survivors: Miriam Moriarty Owens, Mary Donovan, Mary Dunlevy Greene and Maurice Patton. The protesters said they were living on water, coffee and other drinks during their strike.
READ MORE
The group wants the Government to provide survivors with Health Amendment Act medical cards and a full contributory State pensions, owing to the work they had to carry out while growing up in industrial schools and reformatories.
In November, the Government said it would provide financial assistance, priority access for social housing and a range of healthcare supports.
Ms Donovan said she and other members of the group are still feeling the physical and psychological effects of the strike.
Noting there are an estimated 4,000 survivors of industrial schools and reformatories still alive, she said: “These services that we are looking for would change the lives of these survivors.”
She added: “Time is of the essence here. We have survivors passing away in appalling conditions that need these services.”
A spokesman for the Department of Education and Youth said the mediation process, led by mediator Raymond McGee, is “proceeding as a matter of urgency with a view to full resolution as quickly as possible”.
Department correspondence, released via a Freedom of Information request, details earlier meetings that took place amid efforts to end the strike.
Education officials and Department of the Taoiseach officials held meetings with representatives of the HSE and the National Ambulance Service (NAS) throughout the strike.
At one meeting, on October 7th, a HSE official said: “From a health point of view, there is a high degree of risk and ... there is no rulebook or policy on how to deal with such situations.” Another HSE representative “stressed the difficult and serious nature of the situation”, according to the minutes. She urged the department “to continue to push for some assistance from relevant experts as, in her view, negotiation is crucial in this context”.
“At the moment, the situation is at a stalemate,” the file noted.
Welfare checks were carried out on the group by the NAS and other medics during the strike, but officials acknowledged the setting was “not conducive to thorough health checks”.
In a meeting on November 10th, the day before the strike ended, a Department of Education and Youth official confirmed mediation had begun and said there was a “commitment to complete that process as quickly as possible”.
A HSE representative asked whether this process could be “expedited in some way” as the organisation was “very concerned” about the group’s health.
During the strike, TDs received a large volume of emails from members of the public asking them to intervene.
In one email sent on October 1st, a person wrote about the “very dark and disturbing past” involving the treatment of people in industrial schools, mother and baby homes and similar institutions.
“That is still affecting families to this day and will probably still be happening in the future. Unless you do something and end it with the justice they all deserve.”
Government officials, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin and then-minister for education Helen McEntee also met the hunger strikers.
A Department of Education and Youth spokesman said that, at all times during the strike, “the primary concern was that the group should safeguard their health and wellbeing”.
