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The state will officially apologize on Friday and award substantial compensation to Joanne Hayes, who was wrongly accused of murdering a baby found on a beach more than 35 years ago, in what’s known as the Kerry Babies scandal.
It is believed that Ms Hayes will share a 2.5 million euro damages payment, along with her brothers Edmund, Kathleen and Michael Hayes, as well as their daughter Yvonne McGuckin.
The family initiated a judicial process against the State last year, asking the Superior Court to declare unfounded and incorrect all the findings of irregularities made against them by a court.
The State’s apology will be read in the High Court in Dublin. The Hayes family will not be there due to Covid-19 restrictions and a desire for privacy.
Intensely private and protected by her neighbors, Ms. Hayes has rarely spoken publicly about her decades-long ordeal.
Along with other members of her family, Gardaí interrogated her in May 1984 after the discovery of a newborn boy, named baby John, with multiple stab wounds in White Strand, near Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, on April 14, 1984.
Ms Hayes, who was single, was accused of being the mother of baby John and of murdering him. His family was accused of concealing the birth of a child.
The charges were dropped in October 1984.
The parents and the baby’s killer have never been identified.
Around the same time that baby John was discovered, Mrs Hayes, from Abbeydorney, almost 50 miles from Cahirsiveen, had given birth to a baby boy, Shane, who was either stillborn or died shortly after birth and was buried in the family farm.
Despite the two babies having different blood groups, Gardaí claimed that they were twins.
Tests conducted in 2018 using DNA technology concluded that the baby found at Cahersiveen could not have been from Ms Hayes.
Later, taoiseach Leo Varadkar and An Garda Síochána have issued official apologies to Ms Hayes and her family.
Legal procedures
Last year, the family initiated a lawsuit for damages in the High Court against the Garda Commissioner, the Director of the Public Ministry, the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General and the State.
Months of mediation on a settlement have been finalized, with the Kerry Eye newspaper reporting that Ms Hayes will receive 1.5 million euros, while her three brothers will receive 300,000 euros each.
Ms Hayes’s daughter, Ms McGuckin, who was a little girl at the time of the scandal, will receive 100,000 euros.
The Hayes family is also asking the High Court to declare unfounded and incorrect all findings of wrongdoing made against them by a Court of Investigation during the 1980s, known as the Kerry Babies Court.
Neither the parents nor the killer of baby John have been identified.
Two years ago, the Garda launched a full murder investigation with house-to-house investigations on Valentia Island, after issuing a letter of apology to Ms. Hayes.
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