Council apology for role in Tuam scandal

GALWAY County Council is expected to apologise next week for its role in the Mother and Baby Homes scandal.

The council area includes the town of Tuam which is at the centre of the report.

The investigation was established after statements that the bodies of 796 babies and children may have been interred in an unmarked mass grave in the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, in Tuam.

Sources within the council said its chief executive and the cathaoirleach are scheduled to make a statement on the Commission of Investigation report tomorrow.

It is believed that pressure is growing for an apology across two further local authority areas, in Mayo and Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

The pressure is likely to grow on other councils, given that the Commission investigated the records of, and the practices at, an additional 13 mother and baby homes as well as Tuam.

The final report detailed that around 9,000 children, one in seven of those born in the 18 institutions covered by the Commission’s terms of reference, had died in them between 1922 and 1998, double the rate of infant mortality in the general population.

Survivors, though, have warned that, ‘more than fine words are required’ and that ‘councils were the middlemen in all of this’.

As part of that process, one noted: ‘If councils are of a mind to apologise, they should find out what they are apologising for first.’

Concern is also growing across the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ranks that: ‘Too many apologies may leave us open to a list of uncertain liabilities.’

One source said: ‘The thirst for apologies may disappear fairly sharply if it involves the payment of cash amounts.’

Separately, the suggestion is emerging among survivor groups that the former Labour spindoctor Fergus Finlay be allocated a role in voicing or communicating the concerns of the Mother and Baby

Home survivors.

Survivors said: ‘There is a growing sense we need an advocate who will synthesise our position and have a capacity to impose a bit of fear on the Government.’

Mr Finlay, who played a key role in the rise of Labour’s ‘Spring tide’ and the election of Mary Robinson, has not been engaged in politics for a decade.