The Irish Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme (the Payment Scheme) provides financial payments, and health supports to eligible people who spent time in Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions in Ireland. It is a key element of the Irish government’s Action Plan for Survivors and Former Residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions.

Details of the Payment Scheme can be found in our earlier blog on this matter.

On Wednesday 12 March Labour MP, Liam Conlon and chair of the Labour Party's Irish Society, introduced a Private members Bill to Parliament under the Ten-Minute Rule. 

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme (Report) Bill seeks to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the potential merits of disregarding payments received under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme operated by the government of Ireland for the purposes of taxation, means-tested social security payments and social care capital limits, and for connected purposes.

The legislation is popularly being described as “Philomena’s Law”, named after Philomena Lee, who was admitted to Sean Ross Abbey Mother and Baby Home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in Ireland in 1952, where she gave birth to her son Anthony. Ms Lee’s story reached a global audience when it was made into the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. The film chronicled the time Ms Lee spent in Sean Ross Abbey and the 50 years she spent searching for her son, with the help of author Martin Sixsmith.

In introducing the Bill to Parliament Mr Conlon noted that current rules in Britain mean that any payment made to UK-based applicants to the Payment Scheme, would be considered as savings and could result in the applicants losing and/or suffering a reduction in means-tested benefits and financial support for social care that they receive in the UK. This is believed to be one of the reason why only 5% of victims and survivors in Britain have applied to the Payment Scheme so far. 

Mr Conlon went on to say that the law must now be changed to ensure that payments made to victims and survivors pursuant to the Payment Scheme are ringfenced.

Mr Conlon said that if UK law was amended to remove this risk it would benefit 13,000 women now living in the UK who are entitled to apply to the Payment Scheme.

Mr Conlon told Parliament that “Fortunately, there is a solution and it is a relatively simple one. The introduction of an indefinite capital disregard, which my Bill proposes, would remove any risk to an applicant’s benefits. There is strong precedent for such a disregard; the same arrangements have been applied to similar special compensation schemes in the recent past, including those introduced for the victims of the 7/7 London bombings and for payments made under the Windrush compensation scheme.”

Ms Lee said that she hopes the bill and her public support of it "can help raise awareness of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme and ensure that British-based survivors who are eligible get the full amount of compensation without fear that their benefits or social care arrangements will be affected".

The second reading of the Bill will take place on Friday 28 March 2025.