Ms Catherine Corless:

I will indeed. Right from the start, when I began my research, I had absolutely nothing to go on. Even in our local library there was absolutely nothing on the Tuam home. It was as if it did not exist in paperwork. I did try for local knowledge at the time and I got very little. I found that people were very hesitant to speak about the home. I feel that a lot of people knew what was going on, had put it at the back of their minds, and they just wanted to forget about it. I know that the then Minister, Katherine Zappone, had requested in the fifth interim report that local people come forward with evidence and knowledge but absolutely nothing happened because it fell on deaf ears. I found out in the meantime that businesses in Tuam relied heavily on the Tuam home, supplying them with clothes, shoes and so on. There was a lot of input. It was even stated in one of the Galway County Council reports that they did not want to close the Tuam home in 1961 because one of the county councillors at the time said that the Tuam home was an economic plus to the town of Tuam. I think there are probably a lot of people with guilty consciences about what went on at the time. I found it quite impossible to get any information off the elderly people in Tuam who would have known stuff, especially people associated with the home. It was just a wall of silence. With regard to trying to get any information at this stage, I do not think it would work. That was my experience.