The McAleese inquiry into Magdalene laundries was informed in 2012 about “disturbing” infant death rates in excess of 50% at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

Developers of an apartment complex at a former Magdalene Laundry in Cork must carry out an assessment of the “likely occurrence of undocumented burials of children” on the site before planning permission can be granted.

There isn’t a greater instance of abuse than that robbed children of their mothers or mothers of their children, writes Fergus Finlay.

The language and scope of the Mother and Baby Home Commission is questionable, says Conall Ó Fátharta

Immediate redress for thousands of unaccompanied children who were in mother and baby homes has been rejected by the Government.

An amnesty from prosecution for those involved in facilitating illegal adoptions has been suggested by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

The Government has rejected immediate redress for children from mother and baby homes.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and her department have been accused of misleading the UN by claiming the McAleese report made “no finding” in relation to State liability with regard to Magdalene Laundries.

The Government is set to oppose an opposition motion this week advocating a truth commission to investigate mother and baby homes.

People from the town of Tuam have gathered for a vigil at the Mother and Baby Home there in memory of the children whose remains have been discovered at the site.

Survivors from a mother and baby home in Co Westmeath have released a list of everyone known to have died at the facility.

Philomena Lee has said she is “appalled” by the revelations at Tuam, Co Galway, and said all institutions that dealt with unmarried women need to be examined.

A US-based nun has revealed how she was ’sold’ by the Bessborough mother-and -baby home to an American family in an organised adoption in 1954 and how she was reunited with her birth mother over 50 years later.

The Archbishop of Tuam says the Mother and Baby Home inquiry should look at society in general, and not just the religious order that ran the institution.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone says she will know within weeks how a proposed broadening of the Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes will look, as she noted: “The dead do not lie.”

The Tuam mother and baby home should not be treated as an individual scandal, but as part of a national trafficking network that commodified people, says Conall Ó Fátharta.

The true picture of what happened in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork may be difficult to hear but it needs to come out, the Bishop of Cloyne, William Crean said yesterday.

The historian who revealed the depths of the Tuam Babies scandal tonight received a standing ovation from the Late Late Show audience,

Prof James M Smith says that the Church either knew what was happening in Tuam and did nothing or that its bishops never fulfilled their pastoral duty under Canon Law

Latest: There are calls for tests to be carried out in Tuam, where the Bon Secours sisters ran a hospital.

An investigation into mother and baby homes could be widened to take in far more institutions as the Government has ordered a scoping exercise into the scandal.

Infants were taken from their mothers and sold, starved, trafficked, and in some cases denied life itself, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in relation to the Tuam buried babies scandal.

Mother and baby home campaigners have said as many as 180 institutions that dealt with unmarried mothers and children need to be examined by the commission.

A woman has revealed how her baby boy "was just left to die" days after he was born in a mother-and-baby home in Co. Cork in 1961.

Update 6.25pm: Gardaí say they are in contact with the Galway coroner in relation to the discovery of a significant number of human remains on the site of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam.

Survivors of Mother and Baby Homes say they want an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach to make sure they're all included in an upcoming inquiry.

The Irish public are understandably seeking to apportion blame for Tuam and many other such cases in “Mother & Child Homes” and “Magdalene Laundries” throughout the country. 

The names of almost 800 children who died in two of the country’s largest mother and baby homes were given to the HSE by a religious order in 2011.

“Uncharted waters” is how one senior garda described the situation facing the authorities in responding to Tuam.

Concern has been expressed that any evidence given to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission is not admissible in any future criminal proceedings.

There has been much comment on the need for the terms of reference for the Mother and Baby Homes Commission to be expanded.

The Coalition of Mother and Baby home Survivors has claimed that up to 7000 babies could have been buried at 9 mother and baby homes across the country.

Identifying the remains of young children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home would be technically very difficult and the prospect of establishing causes of death highly unlikely, according to forensic and Garda sources.

Identifying the remains of young children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home would be technically very difficult and the prospect of establishing causes of death highly unlikely, according to forensic and Garda sources.

THIS society is again transfixed by scandal. Last week’s confirmation of a mass grave at the Bon Secours home in Tuam, that closed nearly 60 years ago and the belated acknowledgement that “Grace” had suffered decades of abuse reopened wounds that were no more than partially healed.

While the Catholic Church is at the centre of the scandal, both the State and public at large were also complicit, writes Shane Kilcommins.

The Justice Minister says it's 'inevitable' that Gardaí will be involved in the investigation into the discovery of infant remains in County Galway.

Excavations at other mother and baby homes are being demanded after the discovery of “significant quantities” of infant remains at Tuam.

FOR generations we have known the Great Famine as the Irish Holocaust. 

Update - 10.15pm: Groups representing the families of babies who died in mother-and-baby homes were not informed that remains have been found at one site.

The state's inquiry into mother-and-baby homes will help bring closure to children who were put up for forced adoption.

A three-year investigation into Mother and Baby Homes will be conducted following the revelations last year about the deaths of almost 800 children at the Tuam home, the Government confirmed today.

The Government will publish the terms of reference for the inquiry into mother-and-baby homes this morning.

Terms of reference for a full inquiry into mother-and-baby homes are due to be agreed today.

The Bon Secours order of nuns have been ordered to hand over files on the 800 babies who died in a the Tuam mother and baby home.

The Government has been urged to broaden the investigation into how unmarried mothers and their children were treated to include all the institutions from which up to 100,000 children were adopted.

Will Ireland do right by all those it has failed? asks Claire McGettrick.

In the early 1940s died there. Yes, that figure is seven-out-of-ten — more than two children died for every one who managed to survive their time at the home.

The terms of reference for the inquiry must be as wide as possible, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

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