Full excavation at Tuam ‘in second half of 2019’, says Leo

EXCAVATIONS at the Tuam Mother-and-Baby Home are likely to begin in the second half of next year, the Taoiseach has said. The Government announced in October that it would carry out a full excavation at the site of the mass grave in Co. Galway, in an effort to recover the remains of all the children buried at the former religious-run institution.

Leo Varadkar has said that the Government first needs to pass legislation to allow officials to carry out the work.

‘We anticipate that there’ll be excavations in Tuam in the latter half of 2019, because we have to pass legislation in the Oireachtas giving us – the Government – the power to do the excavations,’ he said.

‘For lots of reasons, we don’t have the power to do that.

‘So we’ll have to pass that legislation in the new year, and we’d envisage carrying out the first excavations in the second half of 2019.’ History: Catherine Corless

Following painstaking research at local level, historian Catherine Corless uncovered the names of 796 children who died at the Co. Galway facility, which was run as a mother-and-baby home by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961.

In 2014, the Irish Daily Mail’s sister paper, The Irish Mail on Sunday, became the first national newspaper to report on the case, which made headlines around the world.

The Government has since committed to establishing a familial database in an attempt to identify the children who were buried there.

The Taoiseach said the Government wants ‘to give those children a proper, decent burial’.

Mr Varadkar said before the forensic excavations begin, officials will appoint experts and other skilled professionals who will carry out the work.

The Taoiseach said: ‘In the meantime, we can start appointing the experts and the ground team who will be doing the actual work.

‘We’ve never really done this before in Ireland, on this scale, so we’ve a lot to set up, [and] a lot to learn before we do it.

‘We’re not entirely sure what we’re getting into, but as a Government we’re convinced this is the right thing to do: to remove the remains and to give those children a proper decent burial they didn’t get – and if possible to identify some of them, if the technology allows that.’

In February 2015, the Government established the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

That body reported in early 2017 that there were significant quantities of human remains discovered on the Tuam site during an initial examination.

It drew on a 2016 report from State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy who examined the site of the Tuam grave.

She found that children’s remains were discovered in a ‘haphazard arrangement’ with no evidence of shrouding or being placed in coffins.

The remains were those of children ranging in age from about 35 foetal weeks up to three years old.

At the time, Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said the findings were ‘very sad and disturbing’.

During the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland earlier this year, Ms Zappone handed the Pontiff a two-page letter that outlined the scandal.

In it, the Dublin TD also told him she believed the Church should ‘contribute substantially to the cost of whatever option is decided by the Government’.

‘Give the babies a decent burial’