Readiness to hide the truth is another shameful low

FROM Catherine Corless who uncovered the death certificates for 796 babies lost at Tuam to Minister Katherine Zappone, and the authors of the most recent report by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes – everyone exploring that shameful chapter in our history believes that a cover-up is standing in the way of the truth. The report points the finger of blame at the religious congregation that ran Bessborough where no trace has been found of the remains of around 900 babies, at the Bon Secours nuns who ran Tuam, members of Galway County Council, past and present and the owners of the home. It is suspected that some locals would also have insider knowledge of the disposal of dead infants in a disused sewage system in Tuam. Someone somewhere knows something.

The silence makes a mockery of the tsunami of grief and dismay that overcame the country when the callous treatment of illegitimate children and their mothers at the hands of Church-run institutions was disclosed.

The country has a chance to show respect to fellow citizens who were treated like animals for the crime of poverty and abandonment and denied a Christian burial.

We console ourselves that it was a cold and authoritarian Church who brutalised the poorest of the poor during the last century. The readiness still to hide the truth today, suggests that in the matter of Tuam and Bessborough, locals worked hand-in-glove with clergy.