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 past spoke loudly this week reminding us all that we are no more than a culmination of circumstances, some noble others less so, some fortuitous others contrived.

As the Church plans to discuss erecting a memorial to the 800 babies and children in a mass burial site in Co Galway, the Adoption Rights Alliance has called for a public inquiry into all deaths of babies, children, and mothers at mother-and- baby homes around the country.