Detailed 80-year-old legislation gave Government a clear right to all records on child deaths and adoptions in mother-and-baby homes as they happened — but allowed "charities" to exempt themselves from the oversight.

The religious orders involved in the mother-and-baby homes scandal should be made to pay for an inquiry into what went on, TDs have demanded.

AS horrific as it is, the dumping ground for hundreds of dead babies at the Bon Secours home in Tuam should not be the focal point of our concern, but rather how they ended up there, and why no one cared for so long.