Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns has said that the Taoiseach "doesn't have a leg to stand on" considering the government's approach to mother and baby home survivors.

Last week the government signed off on a redress scheme for the victims, but some people within that group who as children were subjected to vaccine-type trials won't receive any additional compensation.

Ms Cairns joined Moncrieff to discuss the issue and what she believes needs to be done.

"Who's to blame today"

Ms Cairns said that while the State can't "rewind the clock", it should provide justice for victims, but to date, it has failed to do so.

"When the report came out, the Taoiseach took to the Dáil, and the report itself said, 'well look all of society was to blame'.

"When no one is to blame then there's one accountable and nobody gets any justice", she said.

"If society was to blame then for disregarding survivors and letting this happen, who's to blame today?" 

She believes that the Taoiseach, having "shelved" the independent review of the findings over the summer, now "doesn't have a leg to stand on".

Redress

Ms Cairns believes that the State's current scale for measuring harm caused by mother and baby homes is not in line with survivors' wishes.

"[The government] spoke to survivors who contributed to the commission investigation into mother and baby homes and asked what would be the most appropriate way to go about this."

"There's no kind of precedent because we know that historically, the government has failed to provide adequate redress in terms of laundries and industrial schools."

Ms Cairns said that the report found that "people wanted redress to be based on forced family separation".

"Instead, even though the government had that information, they've done that research themselves, they decided to then go ahead and base it on length of time spent in institution."

"You could have been in an institution for less than six months. You could have been separated from your family. You could have been subjected to an illegal vaccine trial ... and you get absolutely nothing."

'No crimes committed'

Part of the difficulty in delivering sufficient redress, according to Ms Cairns, is that "unfortunately and unbelievably" the report found that no crimes were committed.

"[It said] that there was no proof of illegal vaccine trials, that there was no illegal adoptions, that there was no forced labor, no incarceration, all of the things that, of course, we all know did happen in those institutions."

"People who were used in illegal vaccine trials are not getting any particular kind of compensation", Ms Cairns explained.

"People who were subject to legal exemptions aren't either, and people who were in an institution for less than six months just absolutely nothing."

Listen back to the full conversation.