Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I confirm that I am in the precincts of Leinster House. Like others, I begin by thanking Catherine Corless. Without her, we would not be at this point today concerning engagement with victims and survivors.

We are trying to bring about justice for all those not just associated with Tuam but also the entire mother and baby system that prevailed in Ireland for far too long. What a horrible system it was. The work we undertake as a committee on a continuous basis needs to have victims and survivors at the centre of our thoughts.

I will jump straight into some contributions. I take my hat off to Ms Corless. I have dabbled in local history. Like other Deputies and Senators preparing for today, I read the briefing notes but I have honed in on some matters on which I have worked over the years. Many Irishmen died on battlefields in the First World War and there is a very extensive Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Britain that has immense powers to exhume and remove bodies from ground that is not under British jurisdiction, bring them to Britain and undertake a full coroner assessment, with DNA to be matched to a family member. Ultimately, this can put a final chapter in the life story of somebody who died on the battlefield.

I hope Professor Scraton could consider this because he has looked outside the realm of mother and baby homes at different burial scenarios. There must be something in international law. Most recently, I looked at the Hungarian example. The first step Hungary took as a state was instead of seeing the burial grounds as illegitimate, or inappropriate as we are calling them in Ireland, it gave them legally protected status. The next part was an 11-stage process from exhumation, including family members and those in a DNA database, ultimately leading to the reburial of the person in question after identifying the relatives. This brought the matter full circle.

I am sorry for rambling a bit but this is quite a new phenomenon for us to deal with in Ireland. Mother and baby homes are not a new phenomenon. They were around for many decades. In the tragic aftermath, we must look at what other nations have been doing for the past four or five decades. I will finish by asking Professor Scraton on his views on the process I have described. It was a far more complex undertaking and it has been done very successfully over many decades.

I believe in the coroner process. This month 98 years ago, an ancestor of mine was murdered in Sixmilebridge. It was believed that it was suicide and it was not until his body was taken from the grave, laid on white sheets in the burial ground and a coroner's report undertaken that it was established that the man was murdered. Far too many families will go with stories untold and final chapters not completed unless we have a coroner's input on this.

Will Professor Scraton speak to the layers of legality that other jurisdictions have put in place to allow for exhumation, protection of burial grounds, DNA tracing and the work of coroners?