Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I now call on the Minister, Deputy Foley, to make her opening statement.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle as ucht an deis a thabhairt dom labhairt anseo inniu. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on developments at the site of the former mother and baby institution at Bessborough. The legacy of the mother and baby institutions is a deeply sad one that continues to be a source of profound hurt and pain for many people across this country. I am very conscious of the sensitivity of this issue, particularly for survivors and former residents of the Bessborough institution, as well as for their families. Indeed, there may well be members of the public in the Gallery today who were born in Bessborough or who had family members there.

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was established in 2015 to investigate and report on a range of issues associated with mother and baby institutions. One of those was Bessborough mother and baby home. As the commission’s report documented, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary had been invited to set up a mother and baby home in Cork by the head of the Cork Board of Guardians. The congregation decided to purchase Bessborough House, a large Georgian house on 210 acres, and opened Bessborough mother and baby home in 1922. While it was owned and run by the congregation, it was largely paid for by public funding.

Inspections of Bessborough mother and baby home were carried out by the Department of Local Government and Public Health. One diligent and determined inspector, Alice Litster, raised the alarm about the fact that 70 of the 114 children admitted to Bessborough in the year ending 31 March 1943 had died. All but one of the infants were under one year old. As the commission’s report documented, Ms Litster identified the unsatisfactory milk supply to the home and the failure to breastfeed as the main causes of the high death rate and the unhealthy condition of the children. She later recommended that Bessborough be closed to new admissions for at least three months.

Up to the start of 1945, no serious steps were taken by the congregation, the South Cork Board of Public Assistance or the Department of Local Government and Public Health to address the problem, but finally, in January 1945, the Department of Local Government and Public Health decided to implement Ms Litster’s recommendation to close Bessborough to new patients for a period. The mother superior in charge of Bessborough was subsequently replaced. In December of 1945, the Department of Local Government and Public Health wrote to county councils and boards of public assistance to inform them they could resume sending pregnant mothers to Bessborough. This is just one aspect of the decades-long history of Bessborough examined in the final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. In total, 9,768 mothers and 8,938 children were admitted to Bessborough until it closed in 1998, which is not that long ago.

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes had wide-ranging powers and conducted extensive inquiries, searches and test excavations at institutional sites in an effort to locate the burial places of children. It made extensive efforts to establish where the children who had died at Bessborough were buried. The commission examined the records of the deaths in the institution and cross-referenced these with information provided by the General Register Office. It also reviewed the records compiled in the institution and confirmed that there was no information about burial arrangements there.

The commission was particularly concerned that none of those who had been involved in the running of the institution were able to identify the burial place of the children who had died there. Given the lack of documentary evidence, the commission engaged forensic archaeologists to carry out cartographic assessment of possible unrecorded burial arrangements in the grounds. The forensic archaeologists and the commission’s researchers reviewed all available cartographic sources and aerial images. A site survey was also conducted. While there are a number of locations within the grounds where burials could have taken place, no evidence was found of burials anywhere except the congregation burial ground, which is not nearly large enough for the number of children involved.

The commission also examined aerial photography taken by the Irish Air Corps in 1951. This is interesting because the large majority of child deaths at Bessborough occurred before this date and the commission’s view was that if there had been burials in the grounds, high-resolution aerial photographs would show some ground disturbance or anomaly on the landscape to give some indication of where remains might be located. However, no visible features on the Bessborough landscape indicated any obvious site of the remains of such a large number of children.

In addition, the commission issued a national public appeal seeking information from individuals who might have had information about the burial places of children who died in Bessborough. All information was followed up. The locations identified as possible burial sites, some of which have now been built on, were assessed by forensic archaeologists but no evidence was produced to suggest any of the identified sites contain human remains. The commission also actively investigated the possibility that former residents of Bessborough might have been buried in other locations. It examined the burial records of burial grounds that had been in operation in the area. While it identified some burials, it was unable to establish the burial location of the majority of children who had died while resident at the institution. The commission considered that it is likely that burials did take place in the grounds of Bessborough but, despite its extensive investigations, was unable to find any evidence of a location. It considered that the only way that it can be established whether burials had taken place in the grounds is by an excavation of the entire property, including the parts of the former 200 acre estate that have now been built on, which it did not consider feasible. While I understand there have been calls for further investigations, it is really important to note that there are very differing views among survivor groups about how the site should now be treated.

I am aware planning permission has recently been granted for the building of apartments on a portion of the privately owned land at the Bessborough site. For the record, I must be clear the State does not own the land in question. The Government's response to the legacy of mother and baby institutions is set out in the Action Plan for Survivors and Former Residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions. On foot of the action plan, in November 2022, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage wrote to local authorities, including Cork City Council, requesting that development plan processes give adequate consideration to incorporating appropriate measures to ensure the protection of unrecorded burial sites associated with an institution. While planning decisions are a matter for the relevant planning authorities, the circular issued by the Minister noted that, in assessing planning applications at such locations, evidence of unrecorded burial sites should be treated as a material consideration and that appropriate conditions may be attached to potential developments.

My predecessor, Deputy Roderic O’Gorman, also brought the findings of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation to the attention of Cork City Council and An Bord Pleanála, highlighting the unresolved questions with regard to the location of burials on the site and, where any development takes place at the site, the need for that to involve archaeological investigation and ongoing monitoring. I note that in the permission that was recently granted, Cork City Council has attached a number of conditions, including requirements to have a forensic archaeological monitoring strategy and a forensic archaeologist in place to monitor excavation at the site every single day. It is also specified that if human remains are located, all work on site should cease and relevant authorities should be informed. Forensic archaeologists are professionals who work on the recovery of human remains, including in the context of modern crime scene investigations. It is important to state here that if the development commences and remains are uncovered during excavation for building purposes at the Bessborough site, it may then be appropriate for those remains to be excavated under the provisions of the Institutional Burials Act 2022.

The profound importance of both local and national memorialisation is clear from engagements with survivors and former residents.

The Government's action plan contains commitments relating to dignified local memorialisation of known or agreed burial sites. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage established a working group of departmental and local authority officials to advance the commitment to local memorialisation. Officials in the relevant Departments will work together with a view to bringing forward proposals to support inclusive, survivor-led local memorialisation.

Another key commitment in the Government’s action plan is the development of a national memorial and records centre. In March 2022, the Government approved high-level proposals for a national centre for research and remembrance to be located on Sean MacDermott Street in Dublin. It will stand as a site of conscience to honour equally all those who spent time in industrial schools, Magdalen laundries, mother and baby and county home institutions, reformatories and related institutions, and all those who have lived experience of lreland’s historical adoption and boarded-out systems. The national centre will stand as part of our national institutions and will comprise a museum and exhibition space, the development of which will be led by the National Museum of Ireland, a research centre and repository of records related to institutional trauma in the 20th century, which will form part of the National Archives, and a garden space for reflection and remembrance.

There has been significant progress on the development of the centre. In July 2023, the Government approved the master plan for the national centre campus and the preliminary business case for the main national centre buildings. In March 2024, the Government approved further key project documents, including the preliminary business case for the full national centre campus. An application for planning permission was submitted in November 2024, and planning permission was granted by Dublin City Council in February 2025. Enabling works are under way at the site and main works are expected to commence later this year.

Survivor members were recently appointed to the steering group that is driving the overall co-ordinated development of the national centre campus. In addition to survivors, the steering group membership includes the special advocate for survivors and representatives of the relevant State bodies. While physically situated in Dublin, the national centre will be accessible for all survivors and affected persons in other parts of Ireland and abroad. This will be made possible through the provision of digital access to some records and exhibits. In addition, it is envisaged physical presences will be developed elsewhere, including in conjunction with some local museums, to enable survivors to visit more easily.

I fully acknowledge the trauma that must come with not knowing the burial location of one’s family members. I acknowledge that the application to build on lands at Bessborough, and the granting of planning permission for that application, has reawakened much of that trauma. I would like to express my sincere understanding of how difficult this has been for mothers who stayed in Bessborough and for the children who were born there.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for that. I also welcome to the Chamber any persons in the Public Gallery who are associated with the Bessborough development.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am going to talk about Bessborough, but I will also talk about the entire system of mother and baby homes, industrial schools and county homes. We have had many apologies in this House, and rightly so; they are welcome. Too often, however, the State has failed to truly get to grips with what was actually in place in this State, that is, an entire system that was integrated between county homes, Magdalen laundries, mother and baby homes and industrial schools. To say it was a dark period of our history is an understatement, and I will return to that because it is not merely history. This was an entire system that had the imprimatur of the State and that the State was entirely complicit in. The State's response has always been to treat it as piecemeal and a bit of wrongdoing by institutions here and there, instead of really confronting the fact the State fully endorsed and was part of this system, and to a large extent relied on the system.

There has not been a frank and honest recognition of the pain that was caused. The most obvious example of that was the heartlessness of the six-month limit for compensation under the mother and baby home scheme, as if the trauma of separation was any less for those who fell under that bracket. We know now very clearly that trauma exists right from birth and that separation would have been created. That was one of the most callous proposals and decisions adopted by any Government in recent years.

Bessborough puts it into stark relief. We can all acknowledge maternal health in the forties and fifties in Ireland was not what it should have been, but to say the standards in Bessborough fell below that does not even begin to cover it. Public health reports looking at this saw an infant mortality rate of 82% in some years in the forties. The cause of death of some 20% of the deaths in Bessborough in the forties and fifties was marasmus, a form of severe malnutrition. People were dying in Bessborough in Cork in the forties and fifties for want of food and nutrition.

It is also important to say this is not only history, and we would make a profound mistake in treating this as only a period that can be looked back on and examined in a historical context. There are people in the Public Gallery and watching on whose brothers, sisters and mothers were in Bessborough. For those people, this is profoundly real. This is about being able to identify where their loved ones were buried; that is what we are talking about. I was at an oral hearing for one of the previous applications, which was thankfully refused, and I remember a debate between esteemed, capable people who had different opinions on how to interpret old ordnance survey maps. One set of experts was trying to say, "Well, the marking there for a burial ground represents the order's burial ground over here", while another expert was saying, "No, very clearly, this burial ground could potentially have been there." Which of them was right?

The point of this, and what has stayed with me since then, is that this was no ordinary housing application. This was a housing application talking about whether or not children had been buried there. That was the fundamental point. It is no ordinary planning application that we are discussing now. It is profoundly wrong and hurtful to build there. The Government will say it cannot interfere in planning locations, but there could have been a Government intervention in the Institutional Burials Bill. It is not only in Bessborough but also in Sean Ross Abbey and other locations across the State, and the Government should have recognised that. We have been talking for some time in this House about this issue as regards the institutions and where children were buried. Some 700 children who died at Bessborough are unaccounted for. We do not know where they are buried. It is absolutely appalling.

I have talked about the State's complicity in this. A story just reported today that the State's Chief Medical Adviser, James Deeny, communicated to Bessborough that they would put aside their investigation if the death rate continued to decline. That is what we are talking about here, the potential burial place of children. The Government needs to find some legislative mechanism to ensure sites such as this and across the State are protected, because this is not the only location.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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The decision to grant planning permission for a residential development on the site of the former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork is deeply wrong. It is deeply troubling and profoundly disrespectful to the women and children who lived there, who suffered there and who died there. Bessborough is not just another development site; it is a place of trauma, loss and gross injustice. It is a place where women were confined, where children died and where families are still searching for the truth. We cannot discuss planning at Bessborough as if it is comparable to any other planning application in the State, as if it is simply another zoned map. This is about history, accountability, human dignity and the real impact that Bessborough still has on those who were there. This decision risks erasing history and erasing the often horrific lived experiences of women and their children. These are not distant, abstract stories.

The Minister mentioned 1998. I was a mother in 1998. These are real people who suffered real injustices at the hands of both the State and the church.

They are sisters, aunts, daughters, mothers and children. They are families who were failed and who continue to be failed. We know that hundreds of mothers and children died in Bessborough during its years of operation. We know there are no records for some of those who died there. We know that the commission itself said it is highly likely that burials took place on the grounds. In that context, how can any development proceed in good conscience without first establishing the full truth? I acknowledge the Minister's opening statement and the recognition of a forensic archaeologist but that is simply not good enough.

This week, academics and human rights experts warned that allowing large-scale development on this site risks undermining Ireland's obligations to properly investigate locations connected to mother and baby homes. They raised serious concerns that the full extent of burials may not yet be known and that construction could proceed without questions being answered. These warnings cannot be ignored. They must be taken seriously by the Government and the planning authorities.

Sinn Féin has been clear and consistent on the legacy of mother and baby homes: survivors and families must come first. The record of successive Governments on this issue has been one of delay, exclusion and avoidance. From the commission of investigation established ten years ago and the sealing of the records to the redress scheme that excluded survivors, there have been repeated failures to confront the truth. Once again, we are faced with a decision that appears to prioritise moving on over finding out what really happened and attempting to bring some level of closure to those women who suffered so horrifically within those walls.

There is no doubt that we need housing, and Sinn Féin supports developments, but we support the development of homes in the right place at the right time and not at the cost of covering up the truth or stripping dignity away further. We cannot build over sites where there are still unanswered questions about unmarked graves, missing records and the fate of children who died in State-supported institutions. If this development proceeds without a full investigation, without proper consultation with survivors and without ensuring that all burial grounds are identified and treated with respect, the State will be failing these women and children all over again.

There must be immediate action to safeguard this site and a full and thorough examination of the grounds is required. Survivors and families must be consulted and listened to. Local memorialisation must be provided and no development should proceed until the truth is fully established. The Taoiseach himself has said the State failed mothers and children in these institutions, but words must mean something. If we allow this site to be built over without first establishing what lies beneath, not only will history just be neglected, it will be actively erased.

Survivors have endured unimaginable trauma. I cannot imagine the trauma of not knowing where a loved one is buried. They should not be retraumatised by decisions taken without them about their history and against their wishes. A grave injustice was done. It cannot and must not be covered over. Sinn Féin is determined to secure truth and justice for survivors of mother and baby homes and for those who did not survive. They have strength and resilience, but what must seem like an ever-ongoing reopening of scars and traumatic events cannot continue to be inflicted upon them by the State or any arms of its apparatus.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Some 18,000 women and children went through or spent time in Bessborough. It closed in 1998. This is not just a historical wrongdoing; it is a modern one right up to today. There are people who still bear the scars and the trauma. To give a feel of it, John O'Brien died on 3 November 1922. He was ten months old. He was a young little baby, who was probably laughing and able to clap and what have you. He was the first child to die in Bessborough. Zoei Bonny died on 10 August 1994. She would have been 32 this year. She was only two days old and she was the last baby to die in Bessborough. From John to Zoei, 921 other children died on that site. I do not have the time here, unfortunately, to name each and every one of those children, but the stories of Zoei, John and all those whose lives were lost too soon cannot be erased from history. The State owes it to them to make sure that does not happen. They were not given dignity in life, but they should at least be given dignity in death.

Over 923 children died. There are 64 graves. Only 64 have been found. It is hard to wrap your head around the number of children, babies and mothers who died in Bessborough. It is unbelievable. Three children died on this date, 26 March, over the years. There was John Coughlan, one month old, who died in 1923; Kieran Lennon, who was six months old and who died in 1945; and Vincent Joseph Finn, who was two days old when he died in 1959. There are no graves to visit them today to remember them and no headstones to mourn them. There is no dignity in their death. The atrocities inflicted on them in life, continue in their death.

People use the phrase, "to sweep it under the carpet", about Ireland's approach to mother and baby homes throughout the 20th century. Now, instead of sweeping it under the carpet, it is going to be swept underneath apartment blocks and concrete. How can that be right? What is planned is wrong and must not go ahead. This Government must step in. The solution is to properly investigate where these babies are buried, to find their graves and to give them peace in death. We will make a submission to appeal the planning permission granted. I want to say strongly here on the Dáil record that I object to it. I object to any development on this site until all investigative means have been used to identify where every child and mother is buried. I object on behalf of Zoei and John and all of the hundreds of babies who have had their chance of dignity in life and in death robbed from them. I object on behalf of Nellie Sweetman, who was 86, when she died after decades in Bessborough, and Josephine Larkin, who was only 20 when she died of shock after extensive burns on her body.

The mother and baby homes commission of investigation did not use all means necessary, and neither Cork City Council nor An Coimisiún Pleanála can see the results of the investigation. That is wrong. How can a decision be made without seeing the investigation? Planning should never have been approved, and it must now be refused. The Government should CPO this site and carry out the investigations. I attended a vigil recently and the level of upset was just indescribable. It is hard to imagine the heartbreak people had when they heard apartments were going to be built on this site.

I take my final moment to thank those who have made sure that Zoei, John and every other baby in Bessborough will never be forgotten. In particular, I mention Carmel Cantwell, whose fight for William has shown what an excellent sister she is. There is a vigil there every summer. I encourage anyone to go to it to listen to the stories of the people, the mothers and the children, of Bessborough.

Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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When we speak about Bessborough, we are not speaking about an abstract planning file or a routine decision before a local authority. We are speaking about a place that goes to the very core of who we are, or who we claim to be, as a republic. There are moments when politics must step back from process and confront conscience. This is one of those moments. The history of mother and baby homes is not distanced or detached. It is raw and painful, and remains unresolved for far too many families.

Bessborough, in particular, stands as one of the starkest symbols of that legacy. Nearly 19,000 women and children passed through its doors. That is not just a figure. It is a measure of suffering on a scale that is difficult to comprehend fully. We must be honest about what this means. These were women and children who endured conditions that no person should ever have to face. Their experiences were marked by stigma, silence and a profound absence of compassion from the State and society alike.

When proposals come forward to develop this land, we cannot treat it as just another site. This is not simply about housing supply or zoning decisions. It is about moral responsibility and memory and whether we have truly learned anything from our past. More than 900 babies are believed to have died at Bessborough. As my colleague, Senator Harmon, pointed out, the majority of these children remain unaccounted for, and the site itself may in fact contain a mass grave. That is the crux of it. Truth matters to survivors and relatives, and it must matter to us as legislators.

To proceed with development in the absence of a full and thorough investigation would not just be premature; it would be wrong. It would risk closing off avenues to truth which have already been denied for decades, and send a message that expediency can have precedent over dignity.

My colleague on Cork City Council, Councillor Peter Horgan, has been extremely clear on this. This is a deeply painful and shameful chapter in Ireland’s history and any future of the site must be guided by sensitivity, transparency and respect. It should, most importantly, be conscious of the pain and suffering of survivors. We in the Labour Party have urged the Minister for housing to use powers under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act to protect places like Bessborough from development, yet he has failed to do so. That is why Councillor Horgan has lodged a planning objection against the site.

We have to ask ourselves difficult questions. What does it say about us if we build over ground that may contain unmarked graves? What does it say to those who lived through these institutions or who lost loved ones there? For many, Bessborough is not history; it is a lived experience, a grief that has not yet found closure, and questions which remain unanswered.

Let me be clear; this is not an argument against housing. We all recognise the urgency of the housing crisis, particularly in a growing city like Cork. However, the issue is not whether we build, it is where and how we build. There are alternatives. There are vacant and derelict sites which can and should be prioritised. What is being asked here is not unreasonable; it is simply that we approach this particular site with the care, sensitivity and respect it demands. Ultimately, this comes down to respect for the women who were sent there, the children who never left, and the families who are still seeking truth.

We have a choice. We can face our history in full, however uncomfortable that may be, or we can turn away from it. If we choose to turn away, we diminish not just our past but our integrity as a society. Bessborough is not just land; it is a memory and deserves to be treated as such.

Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I express my solidarity with the survivors of the Bessborough mother and baby home and of all mother and baby homes as we broach this issue. We are talking about a matter of great sensitivity relating to the disappearance of hundreds of women and babies. This is a matter of basic human dignity for survivors and for the babies and mothers who did not survive. We are also talking about what exactly it means when the State makes an apology for something. The State is making plenty of apologies these days but what do they mean? We all know what a hollow apology sounds and feels like. How do we know, and how does the State express it is actually sorry when it comes to survivors of mother and baby homes? There always tends to be a focus on the financial redress side of a State apology but true justice requires a much broader and more holistic approach than simple financial restitution. That is the easy part, and we are not even getting that right by putting up arbitrary barriers based on time spent on institutions if one wants to apply to these things.

A genuine apology requires self-reflection and changed attitudes and behaviours towards people who may previously have been excluded and looked down upon and changed approaches to how the State conducts its business so that the failures and sins of the past are not repeated. It requires truth-seeking and truth-telling, reflection and memorialisation.

We know that of the 923 babies who died at Bessborough, 859 are entirely unaccounted for. The location of the remains of 19 mothers is also unknown. The commission of investigation reports it is highly likely burials took place on the grounds of Bessborough. The absence of certainty around the location of the remains of those who died at Bessborough is precisely why planning permission was refused for a redevelopment there by An Bord Pleanála in 2021. Nothing has changed in the interim.

We cannot atone for best Bessborough, this national shame, by bulldozing it and paving over the memories of those who lost their lives there. Special advocate for survivors, Patricia Carey, has spoken about how this proposal has been retraumatising for survivors. I am sure the Minister has seen the letter written by a number of human rights lawyers and academics from the University of Galway to An Coimisiún Pleanála today regarding this site, and is aware that the State has failed to comply with its obligations under European human rights law with regard to deaths and disappearances. We need to heed the calls from the survivors.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank the Government Chief Whip for facilitating time for this debate at my request. I was struck by something my colleague, Deputy Ó Laoghaire, said earlier in relation to the tendency of the State to treat issues of institutional abuse as piecemeal and individual. If we look at industrial schools, Magdalen laundries and mother and baby homes, the fact of the matter is this was incarceration funded by the State and facilitated by a corrupt institution, the Roman Catholic Church.

I was struck by some aspects of the Minister’s speech in relation to there being no information about burial arrangements. While the Minister stated that there are a number of locations in the grounds where burial could have taken place, no evidence of burial was found anywhere except the congregation burial ground. That brings me back to an experience in my own family. My grand aunt was in a mother and baby home in the 1950s. Her child was taken from her and sent to Australia. We only found this out approximately ten or 12 years ago. She could not make contact with her biological daughter for decades afterwards. There was no paperwork surrounding her daughter’s birth or registration of birth; it was extremely difficult to obtain.

I note the previous application was for a SHD but this was ruled by An Bord Pleanála as being unsuitable. The fact of the matter is that the Bessborough site requires a national intervention to prevent development. The State has obligations under the ECHR to investigate this and it should be responsible for surveying and protecting the site itself. It should not be something that is left to any private entity. Some of the rhetoric coming from Government in relation to this is markedly different and departs from what the official policy position is. The Taoiseach said Cork City Council should have purchased it, the Tánaiste said he was deeply uncomfortable with the situation, and the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, said the solution was not to CPO the site.

The State needs to step in here. This should be a site of conscience and national commemoration. The way survivors have been treated here, as survivors are consistently treated by the official mechanisms of the State, is absolutely appalling. The fact of the matter is that only two people, Carmel Cantwell and my colleague, Councillor Peter Horgan, bothered to lodge a formal objection to this. The Minister for housing has powers under section 28 and can issue ministerial guidelines.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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At the outset, I thank the Minister and Government for facilitating these statements today. They are absolutely necessary. As we all know, Bessborough represents a very long dark chapter in our past. It extended from 1922 to 1998. It was a very recent chapter. It is not that long ago since Bessborough closed its doors. Some of the history of what went on in Bessborough is known and some is unknown but certainly there were horrors in relation to it. Some of that is documented but much of it is not. As we have outlined here today, 9,768 women and girls went through Bessborough, and 8,938 children also experienced it.

That is over 18,000 human beings, as Deputy Gould referred to earlier. A total of 923 children died in Bessborough. We know that only a very tiny number of those are accounted for. These facts are stark and very significant. I acknowledge that the commission of investigation undertook work on the Bessborough site. It also concluded that it is likely there are further burial sites relating to Bessborough. The fact that the commission said it has found no evidence as to where these may be located should not in any way be used as a reason to suggest the Bessborough site can be developed. We absolutely need to err on the side of caution on this. The 923 figure is stark in terms of our past as a country.

With regard to the role of Cork City Council, a unanimous motion, as I understand it, has been passed regarding the compulsory purchase order, CPO, of the site. I do not understand how the council has not been more proactive over the years on the site. As someone who served on the council for many years I know that councillors have a lot of powers in the development plan over the zoning of land and designating and categorising of land. I genuinely do not understand how the Bessborough site was not protected in various city development plans over the years. That was a mistake and that was unfortunate but that is where we are now. As we know, there is planning permission in place.

As housing spokesperson for my party, I speak week in and week out on the need for housing supply and on the housing crisis, and how that is impacting on our citizens in an acute way. We need housing but there are limits and exceptions to that. This situation is an exception to that. I have no difficulty in saying, as a housing spokesperson, that this site should not be developed. I may come in for some criticism on this given my role but I absolutely stand over it. There are exceptions to everything and this is one of them given the very dark past that occurred in Bessborough. I ask that the Government does everything to find a different way forward here. It is possible to find an alternative way forward. As public representatives, we all know the reality when there is a planning permission and it is appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála. If that is allowed to follow through on its course, there will be a decision. There is a window there for the Government to consider what it can do on this. I acknowledge that the options are limited but there is scope to examine this. I thank the Minister for being here and for listening to us today. Family members of survivors and survivors are with us here today in the Public Gallery. I acknowledge them making the journey from Cork to listen to the debate, which is so important. It is a large site. As a Deputy said earlier, it should be a site of conscience. It should be a site that is protected and preserved in respect of those who experienced Bessborough and in respect of their family members. We have a duty as public representatives to work together and collectively to try to find a way forward here that meets those needs better. I ask that the Government does this. We need to err on the side of caution and that is what I ask to happen.

Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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Today's statements on Bessborough are welcome and very important but they will be meaningless unless the Government takes action on foot of the debate today. I urge the Minister to listen to the contributions from across the House, including by Members from her own party, who are calling on the Government to intervene. The bottom line is that apartments should not be built on what is very likely a mass grave. It would not be accepted anywhere else and we cannot accept it here. Níl sé ceart.

Last week I spoke at a protest outside the gates of Leinster House. I want to say directly to the Minister what I said to the survivors and their supporters at that gathering. Recently I attended a vigil organised at the Bessborough site in Cork. Afterwards I took time to look at the death records from the institution: 923 children died in the care of the nuns in Bessborough. The scale of the suffering cannot be overstated, yet only 64 burials are accounted for. The commission of investigation into mother and baby homes found that it is very likely the remains of infants are buried on this site.

During the 1940s in Ireland, the infant mortality rate was 6.5%. In Bessborough, it was nearly 61%, which is ten times higher. The State knew this and it turned a blind eye. Officials in the Department of Local Government and Public Health at the time recognised that should Bessborough deaths be leaked to the public it would result in a "public scandal". All these years later all we have is a decision to grant permission to build apartments on the site that saw so much tragedy. Some of those in power think that this is an issue of the past. They could not be more wrong. The survivors of Bessborough have never received justice. Families are still looking for information and answers. This is not just about Bessborough. If the planning permission goes through here, it sets a precedent for the use of other grounds and other institutions such as those in Sean Ross Abbey and Castlepollard where burials also remain unaccounted for.

These children matter, the survivors matter and our history matters. The Government cannot treat this like a normal planning application and sit idly by as concrete is poured over graves. Despite what the Government might say, our reckoning with this dark period of our history is not over. It is crucially important that future generations understand what happened here and elsewhere. We need a full investigation of the grounds of Bessborough. This should be followed by sensitive excavation of the site, which should then be subject to a CPO to establish a memorial for all those who suffered. The Minister mentioned the museum in Dublin but survivors elsewhere across the country, including in Cork, also need a space, not just an apartment complex. Every attempt to reckon with this period of our history has been deeply flawed. Time and again successive Governments have failed survivors. This cycle must end. That starts with the Minister intervening to stop this planning application at Bessborough. Abuse cannot, and must not, be cemented over.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I welcome to the Public Gallery people who were incarcerated in Bessborough and other institutions. I particularly welcome Councillor Noelle Brown who was born in Bessborough and who has been an activist in this area for decades. Noelle has tirelessly highlighted the wrong done in this country.

We are at a tipping point in how we acknowledge and make amends for our history and the large-scale human rights abuses that took place in mother and baby institutions. The incarceration of women and the forced disappearance of their infants and children, either through death or forced adoption, has left a legacy that affects not only survivors but us as a nation. Thanks to Catherine Corless, we finally have a sensitive excavation taking place in Tuam. It has signalled to survivors that these children mattered not only to their families and mothers but also to this country. The news that planning permission was granted at Bessborough, the site of another mass grave, caused deep pain for survivors of that institution and sent shock waves to survivors of other institutions where thousands of children's burials were also unaccounted for. The recent protest outside the Dáil and the phenomenal public support that followed illustrates clearly that the people of Ireland want the remains of the children in Bessborough dealt with equally sensitively as those at Tuam. The stories told by survivors were absolutely heartbreaking and they have been retraumatised by this planning permission.

A second protest by students and teachers from Larkin Community College was a tender and sincere questioning of why the Bessborough children do not matter. These young people, students from the college, made paper hearts with the names of the 923 children whose remains are disposed of at Bessborough and the cruel way that each one of them died. It would take me 45 minutes to read out the names of every one of those 923 children. The children of Bessborough were not buried; they were disposed of in the hope that they would be forgotten and never recovered. The plan to build on that mass grave is a double cruelty at a time we should know better. This is not who we are as a country. This is not who we are as a nation. It is not what we want as a country to see happen. The children of Larkin Community College have been very clear in what they want. They want to make sure that every one of those children is valued and loved and remembered, not only by their families but by us as a country.

It is well-documented that Bessborough was a cruel and cold place for every mother and every child incarcerated there. To have them subjected to that cruelty at their most vulnerable can never be forgotten.

To leave a mother grieving the loss of her child for decades with no grave to visit, and then to decide to pour concrete over a sensitive site is a modern cruelty that has no place in Ireland in 2026. It is not who we are as a nation.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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I am conscious that this will be my last contribution, and I am sure that of others, before we head off for the Easter holidays. The Easter celebrations have a particular resonance in Ireland because we celebrate the parts of our history where we were valiant. We will probably visit commemoration sites and read testimony on walls about a nation that proudly professed that it would cherish all of its children equally. I hope those of us at those commemorations can reflect on the motion before us and think about the 923 children who were not held to that standard. They are children whose names and the fact they existed is known through birth certs, but we know nothing of how they died and where they were laid to rest. We all know that history is a continuum. When we go to those commemorations and speak of being part of a republican ilk, we know each one of those lines. The failures that befell babies in Bessborough were similar to those of the women and children who were incarcerated, were forced to engage in vaccine trials and forced adoptions, and were cruelly treated. They were failed but we become part of that failure when we become complicit in the cover-up and when we pour cement to ensure we can never establish the facts. We may never be able to find their little bodies. In becoming complicit, we in this Chamber become part of the continuum of failure that has not yet led to a true reckoning of ourselves as a State. As a nation, we are defined not only by what we choose to commemorate but also by how we choose to commemorate it. In the coming two weeks we will talk about the parts of our history where we were valiant but at the same time we will be complicit in a scenario where we pour cement over a place where 923 babies are buried. That is a failure of our own history.

Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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The nub of the issue, in terms of the outrage currently being experienced within the survivor community, is the treatment by this Government and successive Governments of victims of State wrongdoing. The Government needs to display compassion, humility and understanding, but that is not coming through and has not come through in the context of the survivors of industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and symphysiotomy. The list goes on. Instead, what we see is a litigious, legally minded and legally focused response to victims of State wrongdoing and ultimately an attitude of waiting for people to die out and for the problem to simply die. In my role in a previous organisation, I advised the interdepartmental working group on the redress programme for the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. One of my main messages within that forum was that there was too much dominance of legal thinking and too little humility and compassion. In that exercise I listened to survivors of mother and baby homes. I was struck by how many of them have shaped their lives around their experiences. These people have got qualifications in human rights so they can argue their case. They have fought for decades for justice and to be seen and heard, and many of them will die before they ever see it. This current development is just another demonstration and display of this Government's failure to grasp that concept. When we as a State have so brutally failed a group of people, the Government and all of us must show utter humility and absolute compassion when we engage with people and deal with all of these issues. Building and concreting over the site of a mother and baby home is so far from that that it really is horrific.

John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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This matter goes to the heart of how we as a State reckon with our past and respond to those who continue to live with its consequences. The focus today is on the history of Bessborough and the wider legacy of mother and baby institutions in this country. Bessborough was one of a network of institutions that operated for decades in Ireland by taking in women and girls, many of them very young, who found themselves pregnant outside marriage. Those women were often sent there in circumstances not of their choosing. Once they were inside, they experienced a system that was harsh, isolating and in many cases deeply traumatic. They were separated from the families and communities and in many cases from their children. Their voices were not heard. Their rights were not respected. For far too long, their experiences were hidden from public view. Children born in Bessborough, like those born in similar institutions across the State, faced their own stark realities. Many were adopted, often without full or informed consent from their mothers. Others remained in the institution for periods of time. Tragically, many in Bessborough did not survive. For decades the story of these women and children was not spoken about openly. There was silence at a societal and institutional level. Silence was imposed on those who lived through those experiences. It is only in more recent years, through the courage and persistence of survivors, that the full extent of what happened in places like Bessborough has come to light.

The establishment of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was a significant step in that process. Its final report provided an important record and acknowledgement of what occurred. It documented the conditions within those institutions and the experiences of those who were there. As we know, reports alone cannot answer every question or address every concern. The legacy of our mother and baby institutions remains one of the most painful chapters in our State's history. While the Government's action plan for survivors and former residents is a step in the right direction, we must say honestly that it does not go far enough, particularly when it comes to the protection of unrecorded burial sites. The request from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to local authorities, including Cork City Council, to consider these sites within their development plans is welcome but consideration alone is not enough. These are not ordinary planning matters; they are sacred sites, places of memory and in many cases the only resting place of vulnerable people, children and women whose dignity was denied in life. We need stronger and clearer protections to ensure that no unrecorded burial site is ever disturbed, overlooked or lost to development. The State must lead here with urgency and compassion because how we treat these sites today reflects how seriously we take the injustices of the past. We must remember that this is not simply about land or surveys. It is about people. It is about mothers who were denied agency over their lives. It is about children who were separated from their families. It is about those who died and those whose resting places may not be fully known. It is about trust in the State to do what is right even when it is difficult, trust in our institutions to engage honestly with the past and trust that the voices of survivors will continue to be heard.

The Government's action plan rightly recognises the importance of dignified, local memorialisation of known and agreed burial sites. This is not simply a policy commitment; it is a moral obligation to those who were lost to the families and communities that have carried that pain for generations. While I welcome the establishment of the working group by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, what is now needed is urgency and delivery. Survivors have waited long enough for recognition, respect and tangible action on the ground. We must ensure this process is truly inclusive, is led by survivors, and has survivors' voices at the centre of the decision-making process. However, consultation alone is not enough. Clear timelines, adequate resources and visible progress are essential. I urge the Government to move swiftly from commitment to implementation, to support local communities in creating appropriate memorials and to ensure these sites are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. I am aware that planning permission has recently been granted by Cork City Council for a housing development on the Bessborough site. While I acknowledge that a number of conditions have been attached to this permission, including a requirement to have a forensic archaeological monitoring strategy and the presence of a forensic archaeologist during excavation, my clear personal view is that proceeding in this manner is fundamentally wrong. If there is even the slightest possibility that burial remains may be located on the site for which planning permission has been approved, assurances should have been confirmed as part of the planning process that no burials took place on that portion of land.

That did not happen here and that is a serious concern for me. The conditions provide the work must cease if remains are discovered and that the relevant authorities must be notified but we should not be relying on discovery during construction. We should be ensuring beyond doubt, before any permission is granted, that such deeply sensitive issues have been fully examined. It is now a matter for An Coimisiún Pleanála to determine how this application proceeds from here. I urge that body to take the utmost care and to ensure respect, dignity and due process are at the heart of any decision made.

This is not just a planning issue but a matter of historical responsibility and human decency. The history of Bessborough is not just local history but is a part of our national story. It reflects a time when vulnerable women and children were failed by the very systems meant to protect them. Acknowledging that history is essential, as is learning from it, but so too is ensuring we continue to respond to its legacy. We cannot change what happened in the past but we can decide how we deal with it now. We can choose to listen, we can choose to act and we can choose to ensure no legitimate concern is left unanswered. In doing so, we honour those who lived through those experiences and those who did not live to tell their stories.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It is an outrage that planning permission would be given on this site where over 900 children, that we know of, died but where only 64 graves have ever been found. It has happened despite all the campaigning of survivors and the groups connected with them.

I will mention something the Minister for justice said here the other day when this was raised with him. He basically acted like the Government was powerless and that it was terrible altogether. He used the words "... the Government cannot interfere in respect of planning applications" but of course it can. The Government could object to the application via a Minister, for example. Has it done that? As well as that, this is just part of a pattern of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two parties that were in power for the hundred years when all this happened, allowing the church off the hook because they do not want the history of their role in all this examined. That is the conclusion we have to draw. As for the idea the Government is powerless, it was in here passing emergency laws for the hauliers over the past couple of nights and it could have passed emergency laws on this.

That land should never have been allowed to be sold by that congregation. The Government should have made sure of that. Which congregation was it? It was the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As of last year the congregation is involved in ongoing discussion with the Government regarding financial contributions to a redress scheme for survivors with reports indicating they have resisted demands for payment on the grounds they did not act in an untoward manner. This is despite the fact there was an 80% death rate in some of the years of the home’s existence. Obviously it was not like that in all the years. The congregation was asked for €96.5 million. They have assets of €37 million. I am rounding the figures up. They have almost €2 million in cash in the bank. The nuns sold this site in 2021 and they pocketed €6.85 million. That is the Government’s fault. That never should have happened. Fianna Fáil let them away with murder on this since the 1990s and it could have intervened to put a law into effect so no congregation could sell any site where there were potentially graves. This is an outrage.

The Clann Project has pointed out the Government is legally bound by the European Court of Human Rights to find any bodies that exist and bring them back in a suitable manner for the families of those affected. Bessborough was a site of systemic oppression, and the Government has made sure that that has not actually happened. In the letter the Clann Project pointed out that planning permission was refused a number of times, so the Government knew this was going to happen eventually. I would say the Government is happy to have this built over, so it is another chapter finished for it. The Clann Project also pointed out that under the European legislation investigating deaths of children, mothers ascertaining the whereabouts of the disappeared and returning the remains to relatives is part of the State’s human rights obligations which it has not complied with.

I was not in the Dáil when the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes came out but I remember reading that and thinking "Here we go again, another whitewash". That report should not be cited. It should have been voted down by the Government because so much of it was so mild in its manner towards the people running the homes. It did not use all reasonable means to search for the disappeared children, so let us put that one away. Some of those means would be geophysical surveys, radar, electrical resistivity and magnetometry. I will finish by saying the Special Advocate for Survivors has called for the Government to stop. That is someone the Government appointed. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are trying to bury the truth here and they are happy a private developer is putting this out of the way for them.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I pay tribute to Carmel Cantwell, Noelle Brown who I see in the Gallery, and other survivors and those affected by the crimes committed at Bessborough Mother and Baby Institution. I called it a "home" at the protest last week and I was rightly rounded upon and told it should be called an institution because these were institutions of brutality and oppression that traumatised, stigmatised and brutalised women, and of course led to the deaths of 923 children. It is a horrific stain.

Over the next few weeks we will be celebrating the Irish revolution - the 1916 Rising. One of the greatest - and in my opinion the greatest - Irish revolutionary, whose bust is behind us, was James Connolly. He was a revolutionary as well as a socialist and warned that if the country was partitioned it would lead to a "carnival or reaction" North and South. Connolly was very consciously an advocate for women's liberation and believed that if the Irish struggle for freedom did not liberate women it would be a hollow victory. When he was warning about the carnival or reaction that would result from partition, he was very specifically worried about what would happen to women in a partitioned Ireland where reactionary forces gained dominance in the State. It is appropriate then that Bessborough was set up in 1922 - the year of partition - as part of a policy by the new State of outsourcing the care of women and children to the Catholic Church which then ran institutions where, in one year, three out of four children died, many of them of starvation. I was reading an article I was sent by Donal O'Keeffe in The Echo about the fact in 1947 the State’s Chief Medical Officer’s papers have revealed a threatened investigation by the State into 700 deaths at the time in Bessborough was abandoned if there was a commitment to reduce the number of deaths of children to single digits. It is horrendous what was going on. They did not investigate at the time and the deaths continued, though they reduced.

The dark stain we are talking about on the history of this State is due to its treatment of women and children, its stigmatisation of women because they did not comply with a twisted notion of morality and then the actual deaths of children, the burial place of hundreds of whom remain unaccounted for. It is unbelievable. The idea we would go from that to prioritising the interests of property developers says it all about the carnival of reaction Connolly warned of. We go from this killing of children, effectively, this starvation of children who were buried in unmarked graves – the disappearance of children – to property developers profiting.

We cannot do anything about it even though we are trampling on the sensitivities of people who have been brutalised in these horrific institutions.

I was saying at the protest last week that I was born in a mother and baby home. I recently went with my mother to try to find the place. It had been in Highgate in north London and we could not find it. I have been reunited with my mother and the outcome has been a good one. I met somebody at the protest, Sarah - she said it was okay to mention her name - from Cork. She said to me afterwards that she was born in the Highgate mother and baby home, which we did not manage to find. That mattered to me and it matters to her. I got some messages from other people who said they were born in Highgate. We were disappeared to England and then quietly brought back to be adopted. Our outcomes were okay but Sarah was born in Highgate and then was in Bessborough. She is out there protesting; a second generation of people affected by all of this.

The thought that we will build on this site, and that the Government will not intervene to make up and compensate for this State's failure of the hundreds of women and children who lie buried in unmarked graves, and for the trauma that has afflicted on the survivors and those affected, is horrendous. The Government can do it. As has been said, it could lodge an objection. Deputy Coppinger was absolutely right. The Government should intervene and prevent the crime being compounded for those who have suffered in these institutions.