Minister for Children Norma Foley has secured a Supreme Court appeal against a finding she erred when excluding two institutions from the mother and baby home redress scheme.High Court judge Alexander Owens ruled last February she made a legal error when evaluating whether St Joseph’s Baby Home in Stamullen, Co Meath, and Temple Hill Hospital in Blackrock, Co Dublin, met the terms for inclusion in the scheme designed to compensate former residents of certain institutions.It would be up to the Minister to decide whether these institutions should now be included in the scheme, he held. However, she has now persuaded the Supreme Court it should hear her appeal of this decision.Foley contends the High Court decision would affect how she exercises her powers under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023.A large number of potential scheme applications could be affected by the judgment, while there would also likely be a “significant” impact on practical and financial public resources, she says.Further, she argues the judgment “calls into question” conclusions reached by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. The appeals come in cases brought by Marie Thornton, who was in Temple Hill as a young child, and John Kiernan (now John Duncan Morris), who spent time in St Joseph’s as an infant.The Minister has argued these two centres could not be classified as mother and baby homes as they did not meet the Act’s definition of being institutions “for the purpose of providing pregnancy-related and infant care services”. They were institutions “in which only children [as opposed to children and their unmarried mothers] spent time”, she said.[ Records of children ‘boarded out’ from religious institutions to be withheldOpens in new window ]Owens held that the two homes should not be excluded due to them not providing care to expectant or new mothers. Agreeing to hear the Minister’s appeal, a panel of three Supreme Court judges said the issue of eligibility for redress is “clearly a matter of general public importance”. It is also in the interests of justice that there is clarity about the Minister’s power under the 2023 Act, they said.The judges noted Thornton and Kiernan agreed the criteria for a direct appeal to the top court and bypassing the Court of Appeal were met in this case.As of the end of last year almost 7,000 people had applied for redress under the payment scheme, which has an €800 million budget. By last January more than €75 million had been paid out to just over 5,000 people who spent time in the institutions.