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The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme will open for applications on 20 March 2024.

Work is ongoing on establishing online application systems, rolling out comprehensive training for staff - including in trauma-informed care - and ensuring that all necessary communications, information and application forms for applicants are in place.

Once the Scheme has been established it will be well publicised and clear information and support around the application process will be provided to those who want to apply. If you believe you are eligible for the Scheme, take a look at the How to apply to the Payment Scheme page, for further information on how the application process will work when the Scheme goes live.

Publication on how to apply

Where can I get an application form for the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme?

The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme is not yet open for applications and, as such, application forms are not yet available.

Once the Scheme goes live, you will be able to apply online by visiting www.gov.ie/paymentscheme

If you’d prefer to apply by post, you will also be able to: download a form from our website; or contact the Payment Scheme Office by phone or email to have a form posted to you.

Will I need to submit records documenting the time I spent in a Mother and Baby and/or County Home Institution as part of the application?

No. When the Scheme opens, you will not need to supply records documenting time spent in a Mother and Baby or County Home Institution.

You’ll simply need to confirm that you (or the person you are applying for) spent time in a scheduled institution and include the name of the institution(s).

You will also be asked to provide an indication, or your best estimate, of the dates of arrival to and departure from the institution(s). We understand that not everyone will know the exact arrival and departure dates from the institution(s) concerned, so if this is the case, don’t worry.

If you have a query about accessing your personal information, you can find further information here

How do I get my identification certified for a Payment Scheme application?

When you make an application, you will need to provide a certified copy of photo ID, and other relevant documents, in some cases.

A certified copy of an original document is a photocopy that has been signed by an authorised person.

A full list of who can certify your identification is listed on the Certification of documents page.

What are people entitled to under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme?

There are three benefits available under the Payment Scheme:

- a general payment;

- a work-related payment; and

- health support.

The level of the financial payment will depend on the amount of time spent in one of the institutions. Further information on the payment rates for general and work-related payments is available here.

The health supports will be either:

• an enhanced medical card; or

• for people living outside of Ireland only, a health support payment valued at €3,000, instead of the enhanced medical card.

The enhanced medical card entitles the holder to the following services, without charge, under the public health system in Ireland:

• GP services;

• prescribed drugs, medicines, aids and appliances;

• dental, ophthalmic (services to help with eye diseases) and aural (hearing)

• services;

• home nursing;

• home support;

• counselling;

• chiropody/podiatry (feet issues); and

• physiotherapy.

In addition, if you have a medical card you do not have to pay the €100 Emergency Department statutory charge.

Who is eligible for the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme?

People who spent time as mothers or as children in one of the listed Mother and Baby or County Home Institutions, may be eligible for benefits under the Payment Scheme.

As above, there are three benefits available under the Payment Scheme: a general payment; a work-related payment; and health supports.

Full information on the eligibility criteria for each is available on the Eligibility criteria page.

What institutions are covered by the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme?

This Scheme will cover the Mother and Baby Institutions investigated by the Commission of Investigation and all County Home Institutions. The full list, as per the legislation, is outlined

on the Institutions covered by the Payment Scheme page.

Can I apply to the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme on behalf of someone who has died?

Yes, it will be possible for the personal representative of a deceased relevant person to make applications for a financial payment where the person died on or after the date of An Taoiseach’s apology to survivors on 13th January 2021.

The Payment Scheme Office will only deal with one personal representative for an application. If you are applying on behalf of someone who has died, you will need to provide supporting documentation to verify that you are the personal representative for the deceased person’s estate. If there is more than one personal representative, you will be asked to attach a letter to the application, signed by all personal representatives, nominating you as the personal representative for the application and agreeing that the Payment Scheme Office will deal with you alone in respect of the application. If this letter cannot be provided, an application can proceed, but the Payment Scheme Office will deal with the first personal representative who has come forward with an application in relation to the estate of a deceased person.

In terms of documentation, you will need to provide a copy of the person’s Death Certificate, as well as an additional proof of your right to represent the estate, like a certified copy of the Grant of Probate, or a certified copy of the Letter of Administration.

For further information on the application process, take a look at the How to apply to the Payment Scheme page.

Will any applicants be prioritised within the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme? How will this work?

Yes, generally speaking, applicants will be prioritised by age and applications will be processed in age order.

I live abroad, can I apply to the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme?

The Scheme is not yet open to applications, however if you are living abroad and think that you may be eligible for this Scheme, you will be able to apply in the same way as someone

living in Ireland, once the Scheme opens – that is via the online portal or by post, if you’d prefer to use a paper form.

Regardless of where you are living, the financial payments from this Scheme are awarded in the same way.

In terms of health supports, the services available through the enhanced medical card cannot be availed outside of Ireland. So, if you live abroad, you can apply for a health support payment valued at €3,000, instead of the enhanced medical card. It’s important to note that, if you live outside Ireland and still wish to be issued with an enhanced medical card, to have should you return to Ireland either temporarily or permanently, you will need a Personal Public Service Number (PPSN). In addition, to avail of the services offered through the enhanced medical card, you must be registered with a General Practitioner in Ireland.

Will I need legal representation to make an application to the Scheme?

There is no need to obtain legal support or advice to submit your application to the Scheme. The application process will be straightforward and the responsibility to check for records lies with the Chief Deciding Officer, not the applicant.

Once the Scheme is launched, there will be information and support available to applicants to help them through the application process..

Do I need to obtain legal advice at any stage of the process? Will I be required to sign a legal waiver before I receive a payment?

If you decide to accept a payment under the Scheme you will have to sign a legal waiver. The legal waiver says that you will not bring any legal proceedings and will discontinue any

proceedings already commenced (if any) against a public body, that relate to the circumstances your application to the Payment Scheme concerns. Signing a waiver will not prevent you from discussing the payment you have received from the Scheme, if that is your wish.

To help you to decide if you want to take the payment and sign the waiver, you will be entitled to a capped amount of financial support for independent legal advice. When you are asked to sign the waiver, you will also already know how much is being offered to you by the Scheme.

Until you accept an offer under the Scheme, you will still have the right to bring a case to court if you wish. If you have received a court settlement in respect of the circumstances experienced and relating to the same time period in the institution or institutions that is being applied for, you will not be eligible to apply for a general payment or work-related payment. However, you may still be eligible for health supports.

Are there counselling supports available to survivors and former residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions?

Yes. We recognise that for many survivors and former residents their experiences in these institutions continue to impact them greatly today. We are committed to ensuring that support is available for anyone who may need it. Professional counselling support is available, free of charge, for former residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions. Full details are available here.

GrannyMac®  Keeping Celtic Traditions Alive

GrannyMac® Bake-At-Home Mixes
Baking is deeply rooted into the Celtic culture, GrannyMac® has captured these traditional tastes and textures of the Ireland and British Isles with these classic generational Bake-At-Home mixes. Irish Soda Bread, Brown Bread, Scones, Fancy Scones, Shortbread, and Scottish Oat Pancakes.

Back in 1997 Neville Gardner and his wife Linda decided to open Granny McCarthy’s Tea Room and Bakery in their building in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (right behind Donegal Square their Celtic import shop). Linda and Neville took an exploratory tour to Ireland to find the best Brown Bread in the country. Neville's mother and his aunt Sally had great recipes for Brown Bread or Wheaten bread as it’s called in Northern Ireland where he grew up, so he had some good options to start with!

They ended up deciding on a recipe from the Lifeforce Mill in Cavan Town, an old mill built to provide work during the famine and renovated in the mid 1990s. They read an article on the Mill in Ireland of the Welcomes Magazine and as a result visited the mill.

The tour involved learning the mills history and mixing up your own loaf of wonderful brown bread to bake while taking the tour. Sampling the fresh bread after the tour complete with butter and jam and a big mug of tea convinced them that we had the best brown brewed in Ireland. 

They imported the Wholemeal from the Mill for years as Wholemeal is the secret component to brown bread not available in North America, and later figured out their own blend of locally sourced grains to create their own wholemeal and mix. 

After years of selling Brown Bread and their Brown Bread mix successfully to 1000s of customers, they decided to Trademark their Brown Bread mix along with Soda Bread, Traditional and Fancy Scones, Shortbread and Scottish Oat Pancakes, all items that they have been selling successfully in Granny McCarthy’s and McCarthy’s Red Stag Pub - the restaurant and Pub which they morphed into Granny McCarthy’s Tea Room and bakery.

Here is a LINK to their site to try it for yourself, and let them know you found them in Irish American News!

And a link to the pub: 
Neville Gardner
President McCarthy’s Irish Pub Inc

In Your Business

By Emmett Fitzpatrick
Seamus Kavanagh’s journey has taken him from Swinford in County Mayo to Libertyville in Chicago’s northern suburbs, with stops in places like Galway, the Netherlands, Texas, and Germany. Through it all, he has built an impressive career in business, and he and his wife Nuala have managed to raise an ever-growing family. Showing no signs of letting up, he relishes his role as a pillar of the Irish community in Chicago and aims to continue to strengthen that community for the younger generation.

The product of a traditional Irish family of six children, Kavanagh’s father was a teacher and mother a nurse. He describes Swinford as a great place to grow up, and he credits his high school science and math teacher as a pivotal influence in setting him on the path of becoming a scientist. That teacher was none other than Frank Gleason, who Kavanagh met decades later at Chicago’s Emerald Loop during an Ireland Network Chicago First Friday event that was co-hosted with University of Galway, where Kavanagh earned an undergraduate degree, a PhD in chemistry, and later, an MBA.

“Frank was a brilliant teacher, a cool teacher with long hair in a ponytail,” Kavanagh remembers. “Needless to say, it was a shock seeing him in Chicago so many years later.”

Upon earning his PhD, Kavanagh began his career as a Research Scientist with Dow Chemical, and his first posting took him to the Netherlands, where he and Nuala, whom he had met in Galway and married in 1988, lived for five years. In 1990, Seamus took on a new role at Dow that sent the Kavanagh’s across the Atlantic to Clearlake, Texas, and they welcomed their first child, Niamh, on the Fourth of July in 1991. After two years in the Lone Star State, they moved back to Europe, this time settling near Hamburg, Germany, for another career opportunity at Dow, where Nuala had also taken a job. 

1994 saw the Kavanagh’s move back home to Ireland, as Seamus took a management role with an Irish company and the family moved to Mullingar, where they stayed for a few years. They then settled in Ballina, where he set up a research and development facility for Hollister Incorporated, thus beginning a decades-long career with the company that specializes in developing, manufacturing, and marketing healthcare products and services worldwide. Kavanagh has been with the company for over twenty-five years, holding several executive roles in marketing, research and development, and, most recently, corporate development, where manages the buying and selling of companies and technologies.

“Hollister is privately held, employee owned. We do what’s best for associates and customers in the long term, which is great.”

As Kavanagh reflects on his career progression, he credits his decision to go back to the University of Galway to earn his MBA as the “best thing I ever did for my career,” so he could complement his scientific experience with business skills that have been valued in the company.

He and his family were enjoying their time in Ballina, which included frequent trips to their trailer in Enniscrone Beach and active participation in the local Gaelic football and rugby clubs, but another move was on the horizon in 2004. Hollister coaxed Kavanagh to return to the United States, so he and the family moved to suburban Libertyville, where the company is headquartered.

“This was a difficult move,” Kavanagh conceded, “as my kids were young and it was a big change for them.”

As time went on, the Kavanagh children adapted to their new home, and the family has been here for nearly two decades. The three children have all went on to attend college in the United States and embarked on their own successful careers.

Of course, no story of Seamus’s life and career would be complete without recognizing Nuala, who was recently honored with the Chicago Sister Cities 2023 International Volunteer of the Year Award for her work leading the Galway Sister Cities Committee. The honor was a long time coming, in that Nuala and Seamus have both been involved in volunteering to strengthen ties between Galway and Chicago for the last twenty years. For his part, Seamus has served as a board member of the University of Galway US Foundation, where he works with the University’s executive team and plans events and other engagement opportunities in Chicago. He is not shy when describing his motivations for supporting the University:

“I have three degrees from the University of Galway, and it has helped me to be the person I am,” he shared, noting the “fantastic” mix of academia, sports, and community at the institution. 

Outside of his work at Hollister and volunteer efforts with the University of Galway, Seamus serves as a board member of a dental insurance company in Ireland, an advisor for medical device companies here and in Ireland, and he leads the Bike Ministry and St. Joseph Catholic Church in Libertyville, where he and fellow volunteers fix up used bikes and deliver them to people in need. Alongside Nuala, he also fosters dogs from a local rescue organization.

Reflecting on his immigrant experience, Kavanagh also issued a call to action to young people in the Irish community in Chicago, a community that now includes his first grandchild, born in October.

“The Irish community in Chicago is strong and vibrant and very proud of their heritage. The Irish have always contributed to the communities they live in and I hope that continues in the future. I would like to see the younger generation getting more involved in the different Irish based organizations and taking over leadership roles and continuing the great tradition of building better communities through generosity and kindness.”

On August 16th, 2023 our beloved friend Martin Healy died suddenly at 38 years old.

Martin is survived by his wife, Colleen, and their three young children ages 9, 7 and 3. Martin was a proud and adoring father and family man, who loved watching his kids grow and succeed in school and in their many activities including Irish dance, ice-hockey, and Gaelic football.

Martin was born and raised in Oughterard, Co. Galway, Ireland. He was an accomplished athlete and won the All Ireland Boxing Title at the age of 14. Martin learned the plastering trade and moved to Chicago in 2011.

Martin was soon an integral part of the Irish-Chicago community. He was a member of John McBride's Gaelic Football Club, a great follower of boxing who frequented the Brooks Park Boxing Program and was a horse racing enthusiast.

Martin founded a successful plastering business and was a steadfast supporter of countless community fundraising causes. His infectious laugh, unwavering kindness and support for his family and friends will be missed by all who knew him.

In the wake of Martin’s passing, we have established The Healy Family Fundraiser to support Colleen and their children during this difficult time. All proceeds will be used to cover future education expenses for the Healy children.

The main event will take place on June 23, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N Knox, Chicago, IL 60630.

Your support, in any form, will be deeply appreciated.

Here are some ways that you can help:
● Attend The Healy Family Fundraiser: Enjoy an evening of community, food, music, and fun.
● Sponsor the Event
● Donate Silent Auction or Raffle Prizes: sporting event tickets, concert tickets, memorabilia, gift certificates, gift baskets, food or beverage items - all contributions are welcome.
● Make a monetary donation: Donate directly to the "Healy Family Fundraiser” account.
On behalf of the Healy Family, we thank you for your support and generosity. With sincere gratitude,
The Healy Family Fundraiser Committee
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