Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

An interdepartmental scoping exercise is fine, but it has to happen in parallel with this discovery being designated a crime scene. We know that in previous cases involving mother and baby homes, drug trials took place in some instances. Did that happen in this location? Such questions need to be part of the inquiry. Could such trials have accounted for the very high mortality rates? The persons who ran the homes clearly treated the women and children there as subhuman. Not to deal with this case in an equal manner to those of other unearthed human remains reaffirms that status posthumously. No Department and no set of paper records can reveal what the Garda, the State Pathologist or forensic anthropologists can reveal.

They can tell us if crimes were committed at this scene. It is possible to fully understand and to know what went on here but for that to happen, the authorities must do what they did not do before. They must act. Could drug trials have contributed to the high death rates here? Is it known if inquests were held into these deaths? What exactly is the Government inquiring into? What Departments are involved? Will the Minister declare this, or seek to have this declared, a crime scene?

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