The Special Advocate for the Survivors of Institutional Abuse
The Special Advocate for the Survivors of Institutional Abuse, Patricia Carey was appointed to her role in March 2024. She has met with thousands of survivors of Ireland’s institutions and represented their concerns directly to the Irish Government. But what is the remit of the Special Advocate and how they represent former residents of the institutions that existed across Ireland.
The role of the Special Advocate for Survivors of Institutional Abuse was one of the recommendations of the Action Plan for Survivors and Former Residents of Mother and Baby and County Institutions. This involves engaging with survivors of Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Institutions, Industrial and Reformatory Schools and related institutions, as well as those who were adopted and boarded out and those whose births were illegally adopted.
The Special Advocate and her team operate independently from the Irish Government. Central to their work is to consult with former residents and identify issues of concern so that the Special Advocate can raise these directly with the Government. This is in order that the collective interests of survivors can be put at the centre of the Government’s response to trauma resultant from their incarceration.
Amongst the main issues of concern that the Special Advocate notes that have been raised by former residents include:
People want to be able to tell their stories
Difficulties in obtaining records related to time spent in institutions
There is a feeling of being over-consulted and under-represented
Exclusions from the redress schemes or receiving their full early life information
Patricia Carey is keen to emphasise that her role is to represent those who were in these institutions wherever they now live, be that still resident in the Republic of Ireland or living overseas. To that end Renewing Roots has had the pleasure of welcoming Patricia to Manchester to meet our community. This meeting gave community members an opportunity to discuss their experiences, both in the institutions and subsequently. It also enabled Patricia to learn more about the support that we offer. A productive session was warmly welcomed by those in attendance. This visit was followed up by visits to the Survivors Project at the London Irish Centre and a similar project organised by the Coventry Irish Society.
In order to further ensure that their work is informed by the lived experience and needs of those most centrally affected the Special Advocate Office is establishing an Advisory Council explore key themes of collective concern for Survivors and Affected Persons, such as the key issues raised with Special Advocate in her first year:
Records
Redress
Supports and Services for Survivors – Health and Housing
Memorialisation and Dignified Burial
The council will have 35 positions for people with direct and lived experience of non-recent institutional abuse and forced family separation.
More information on each structure and the positions available, as well as Expression of Interest forms, can be found on the Special Advocate website.
A further aspect of the Special Advocate’s role is that Patricia is a member of the National Centre for Research and Remembrance Steering Group. This role enables her involvement in facilitating ongoing consultation with survivors so that their views can be heard, represented and incorporated when developing the Centre.
In order to achieve this Patricia and other members of the Steering Group have met with people at several consultation sessions, most recently in Cork, Dublin, Galway, London and online. Information from these and other consultations can be found here. This is an essential part of the Centre being developed to take into account the wishes and views of survivors.
You can contact the Special Advocate Department at info@specialadvocate.ie .