Taoiseach to apologize to Dáil to those affected by Mother and Baby Home

TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN is to apologize to those who were placed in homes for mothers and babies in the Dáil next week.

As the Sunday Independent first reported, the Taoiseach will give the apology on behalf of the state and “society at large” on Wednesday, a government spokesman has confirmed to TheJournal.ie.

The long-awaited report from the Home for Mother and Baby Commission, which is about 4,000 pages long and has been delayed several times, will be released on Tuesday.

The Commission was established in 2015 to investigate the treatment of women and children in 14 maternal and child homes and four county homes, a sample of the total number of homes, between 1922 and 1998.

It was created on the basis of claims that up to 800 babies were buried in an unmarked mass grave in an old Bon Secours home in Tuam, Co Galway, following extensive research by amateur historian Catherine Corless.

The commission is chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy, a former judge who also chaired the commission of inquiry into the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, which published the Murphy Report in November 2009; and the commission of inquiry of the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, with the Cloyne Report published in July 2011.

With reporting by Órla Ryan and Lauren Boland