About 34,000 people thought to be eligible for compensation, including those born in church-run homes
Ireland has confronted one of the most painful chapters in its history and agreed an €800m compensation package to thousands of unmarried mothers shunned by society and hidden away in church-run mother and baby homes.
The redress scheme was agreed by the government cabinet on Tuesday and will offer up to €65,000 each to survivors of a practice, widely condemned as a shameful and cruel, that spanned almost 80 years of the country’s 100-year history.