Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am in Leinster House. Two or three committees are aligning at the same time today and I am trying to move headphones from one device to another so I thank the Chairman for letting me back in. To concur with what other speakers have said, the past number of weeks at work have involved the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation and the burials Bill. Listening to opening statements such as that circulated by Ms Alice Coughlan week after week has been harrowing. These are stories from the heart. We can sense the pain and hurt in them. I wish to put my questions to Ms Coughlan because Bessborough has been very much in the news over the past week or so. It is shocking to say that there is a trade-off debate between 179 apartments and over 900 babies whose whereabouts we do not know. It is not fully documented or fully established. A lot more is known about Tuam because there have been four or five years of in-depth archaeological and historical work and a very intense investigation. The Bessborough survivors' group has been bounced into a situation where it has had to fight this vis-à-visan oral hearing with An Bord Pleanála but has the group undertaken any on-site investigation such as those in Tuam?