Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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280. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the reason the interdepartmental report cited just 25 deaths for Bessborough, when a Health Service Executive report, prepared in 2012, gave a total figure of 478 deaths between 1934 and 1953, taken from Bessborough's own death register. [27424/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The figure of 25 deaths contained in the report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Mother and Baby Homes is taken from a table based on the 1934-35 Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health which, as its title suggests, is a report on a single year and covered the entire country. This table was originally published in 2007 in Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin 1922-1960 by Lindsey Earner Byrnes and was reproduced in the report of the Inter Departmental Group in 2014 to help to illustrate mortality rates in various Mother and Baby Homes compared with mortality among the general population at that time.

As I have previously outlined, the 2012 draft report and the data it contains, was prepared by the Health Service Executive (HSE) based on records from the former Bessborough mother and baby home as part of its response to the Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries.This process, which was independently chaired by Martin McAleese, was conducted under the auspices of the Department of Justice and Equality.

In the course of this work the HSE provided the draft report to the Committee secretariat and to the Department of Health and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The draft report acknowledged that its conclusions remained a matter of conjecture until such time as a more forensic examination of the home’s records could be undertaken by the HSE.

As the issues raised in the draft report regarding death rates in Bessborough were outside the direct remit of the McAleese Committee, the HSE advised that these and other concerns would be examined separately by the HSE. At that time my Department advised the HSE that any validated findings of concern from this separate process should be appropriately communicated by the HSE. My Department is not aware of any subsequent report on this matter by the HSE.

The Government has now established a statutory Commission of Investigation to provide a full account, in a timely manner, of what happened to vulnerable women and children in Mother and Baby Homes. Bessborough Mother and Baby Home is included in this investigation. I am confident that the Commission’s extensive remit will facilitate a full and transparent inquiry into all related matters and its reports will be published. An investigation of the rates of mortality, and related concerns, are central to the Commission's Terms of Reference (S.I. No. 57 of 2015). The process of assembling and investigating all relevant records now forms a significant part of the Commission’s work.