Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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388. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to report on the excavations of the burial site of the at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22243/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam (ODAIT) was established in 2023 to oversee the excavation, recovery, analysis, identification (if possible) and dignified reburial of the children’s remains located at the site of the former Mother and Baby institution in Tuam, Co. Galway. The Office is headed by the Director, Mr Daniel MacSweeney.

Last week the Director confirmed that, pending the appointment of a site contractor, work at the Tuam site will get underway in the second half of June this year.

Since his appointment, the Director has worked to establish the core administrative and staffing structures of the Office and has engaged extensively with relatives, survivors and former residents of the institution. Preliminary groundworks were completed at the site at the end of last year in preparation for the excavation to begin in 2025.

The confirmation of the start of the Director’s next phase of work is a significant milestone in the journey to provide dignity to the children who have been so inappropriately interred there for so long.

I am conscious that this will be a difficult time for survivors and family members and it is important that the Director has confirmed that visits to the site for survivors and family members will be facilitated at the start of the works.