Ms Catherine Corless:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to be here. We really appreciate it as part of a final effort to pass this legislation as soon as possible. I am a researcher into Tuam mother and baby home. My research revealed the tragic fact that 796 babies and young children died in the Tuam home in the years in which it was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours, from 1925 to 1961. Worse still, many of those babies were indecently buried in a defunct sewage system at the back of the home, and it was this disclosure, which hit the headlines worldwide, that was instrumental in setting up the commission of inquiry that operated from 2015 to 2020 to inquire into all the mother and baby homes.

The fifth interim report of the commission, published in 2019, gives explicit detail on what the team of archaeologists found, namely, 17 chambers of the sewage tank filled with the remains of infants, older babies and children up to four years old, discarded without coffins, one on top of the other in those chambers. The chambers are accessible only by a concrete lid at the top, not wide enough to allow an adult through, so we can only assume at this time that the babies must have been lowered down by some method or other, maybe by a sheet or ropes. We do not know yet.

These same chambers contain shutters with openings to the main sewage tank, which was originally designed to separate bulk sewage from water while it was in operation during the workhouse period. Since the babies were interred there, from the late 1930s onwards, heavy rain has flooded the area and the seeping water has caused some mingling of the little remains, which is evident from water marks in the chambers. In one photograph from the 2019 interim report, a little finger is attached to a chamber wall because of the water lashing against it. Many of the little remains have evidence of rodent gnawing.

In March 2017, statements of shock and horror were proclaimed by the Government and the President on all national media after the announcement by the then Minister, Katherine Zappone, regarding the discovery of multiple babies' remains at a sewage facility in Tuam on the grounds of the old home run by the Bon Secours. I naively thought then that my work was done and that now surely there would be immediate action by the State, the church and Galway County Council to do the right thing and exhume the babies from this sewage site. Within a month, to my dismay, the Tuam home tragedy fell silent, the site was restored to its original condition, the chambers were closed in, soil was put back and grass seed was sown. Imagine the pain this caused to the families of those in that sewage tank. What would committee members' reaction be if they had a baby brother or sister within those infested chambers?

Outside the walled-off area with the grotto we are all so well accustomed to, there are many more burials, some perhaps in boxes, others perhaps in shrouds. They are in the grassed area all around the playground, under the pathways and under part of the huge playground. We know this from local knowledge, from the wording in a Galway County Council memo the commission included in its fifth interim report and, more importantly, from a ground penetrating survey carried out under the instruction of the then Minister, Katherine Zappone, in summer 2017.

I have forwarded the result of this survey to all committee members. They will see from the pages I have sent that the radar system picked up 69 anomalous and 23 subtle responses, many of them measuring 3 ft 3 in. by 1 ft 6 in., which strongly suggests little burial plots. The anomalous responses are marked and numbered on one of the photos in the survey. It allows easy access to carry out experimental excavation. It is almost a case of "X marks the spot". The report suggests that trial excavations be carried out in those areas. We cannot forget the missing babies of Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, Sean Ross Abbey and all the others; they must be accounted for as well. Some ground was surveyed in those places but it did not account for possible underground passages and vaults such as that in Tuam. It is quite possible they used those areas.

DNA testing of remains is crucial and quite possible. The archaeologists who worked on the Tuam site stated in the fifth interim report that the babies remains are in excellent condition and, although mingled because of seeping rainfall, have little sign of erosion or fragmentation, including even delicate infant skull bones. DNA testing should also search for signs of starvation, evidence of which is to be found in the death reports, injury and malpractice. A DNA database should be set up as soon as possible for families who wish to give their DNA in the hopes of retrieving their babies' remains.