Joyce Fegan outlines the timeline of events that led to the Kerry Babies tribunal, which ultimately turned into the trial of Joanne Hayes, who was crosss-examined for five days at the hearing. Below are excerpts from the proceedings.

Joanne Hayes, who was wrongly accused of the murder of Baby John, has welcomed an apology for what she went through, but her only request now is to be given privacy and allowed to live in peace, a family friend has said.

The director of the lab responsible for the DNA breakthrough in the Kerry Babies investigation has explained how advancements in technology allowed scientists to build a complete DNA profile of Baby John from a sample taken 34 years ago.

The Kerry Babies Tribunal opened in Tralee on January 7, 1985, and ran for 82 days. During the course of the tribunal, a number of claims by the Hayes’ family that they had been assaulted by gardaí investigating the case were examined. All were rejected as untrue.

The tribunal into the Kerry babies was like a “medieval witch hunt” with the victims burning at the stake and the crowd dancing around the fire, the Dáil heard.

Donal Hickey covered the six-month tribunal into the case. Here, he recounts how Joanne Hayes was subjected to relentless pressure in the witness box as Garda legal representatives tried to portray her as a woman of ‘loose morals’.

Gardaí have issued an apology to the woman at the centre of the Kerry babies scandal, admitting for the first time that the original investigation was substandard.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Kerry Babies case in 2014, historian Diarmaid Ferriter and Irish Examiner writer Donal Hickey published a hard hitting news special on the events that many feel changed Ireland forever. Their work is no less powerful today as we reflect on the apology that has now been extended to Joanne Hayes.