A public representative who was born in a mother and baby home won unanimous support from her colleagues to call on the government to buy the home rather than see it fall into the hands of private developers.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has again defended its decision not to publish the report of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone has rejected any suggestion that the decision not to publish the report of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes was due to its scathing criticism of the Government’s adoption tracing legislation.

The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary have decided to sell a 40-acre estate in Cork which accommodates a range of services for vulnerable families and children.

DNA samples can be speedily taken from survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home without the need for new legislation.

Dr Gráinne Healy has been appointed as the new chair of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes.

Survivors of the Bethany Home have expressed their disappointment at the Government's unwillingness to commit a ‘fast track’ redress scheme for ageing survivors of the institution.

The report will be based on the results of a scoping exercise announced in May last year following the discovery by Tusla of 126 cases in which births were illegally registered between 1946 and 1969 in the records of St Patrick’s Guild.

Bethany Home survivors have called on the Mother and Baby Homes Commission to release the details of additional burials it has found in relation to children who died in the care of the institution.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission is obliged under human rights law to provide information to family members about where their relatives are buried — despite claiming it is legally prohibited from doing so.

As is often the case in matters as sensitive as those facing the Mother and Baby Homes Commission conflicts of interest arise.

It comes as a number of prominent independent politicians introduced a motion in the Dáil calling for an immediate inquiry and for immediate redress to be offered to survivors of Mother and Baby Homes.

A number of prominent politicians have called on the Government to establish an immediate State inquiry into forced and illegal adoption.

A report examining if it is possible to start taking DNA samples from survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home to help identify hundreds of children who died there will be published "in the coming weeks".

Children's minister Katherine Zappone warned the collaborative forum on mother and baby homes against leaking its final report saying it would "damage" its work and "undermine its integrity".

When I read that skeletal remains, indicating an infant “on its left side”, lie in a structure that was probably designed for sewage, in the former grounds of the Mother and Baby home in Tuam, I feel sick.

In Ireland, as well as in Mexico in recent years, people were disappeared. The difference is that here, the disappeared were children, writes

Children's minister Katherine Zappone has been accused of "completely misrepresenting" the recommendations of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes by offering to amend the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill.

Public policy yesterday, public policy today. The more things change, the more they sometimes stay the same.

Nuns who ran the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork should be questioned under caution by gardaí, a woman who gave birth to an infant there nearly 50 years ago has said.

Adoption campaigners have said the long-delayed scoping exercise into illegal registrations is a “cosmetic” exercise as it is not looking at illegal adoptions.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission says it is legally prohibited from informing any surviving family members of the children they have found burial locations for.

With the publication this week of the fifth interim report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, the disturbing spectre of the dead who were confined in those institutions of shame and segregation continues to haunt us.

Survivors of the Tuam mother and baby home have said the only way the causes of death of the children who died in the institution can be established is by holding inquests for every child.

Report took five years but runs to just 100 pages; Fails to look at causes or registration of deaths

The sister of a baby boy who died in Bessborough only found out that he was buried in a former famine grave via the Commission's burials report.

THE burial locations of thousands of babies born in mother and baby homes remain unknown after investigators hit unexplained gaps in official records and claims by religious orders that they did not know what went on.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission has said it is “very difficult to comprehend” how the Order which ran Bessborough has no information as to where over 800 children who died in their care are buried.

There is much talk now of the moral compass, which is simply a novel description of whatever it is in our hearts and minds that enables us to distinguish right from wrong, and act accordingly.

The investigation into the mother and baby homes was expected to be a journey into history and past practices long since laid to rest.

The Taoiseach says society needs to atone for the treatment of mothers and babies kept in institutions.

The bodies of some of the children who died in Mother and Baby Homes were used for anatomical studies.

The burial place of well over 800 children who died in the care of Bessborough Mother and Baby Home is unknown - despite "very extensive inquiries and searches".

A State Commission has found that the bodies of hundreds of children from one Dublin mother and baby institution were used in anatomical research up to the late 1970s.

Four years after the establishment of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission, the focus of its investigation has clearly moved away from Tuam and onto other headline-generating institutions like Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

Children's Minister Katherine Zappone has said the State Commission has found no physical or documentary evidence of systematic burials at Bessborough, but considers that it is highly likely that burials took place there.

Members of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes have expressed their disappointment at the Government's refusal to publish its full report.

The fifth interim report on Mother and Baby Homes is expected to focus on burial arrangements for the women and children who died in the institutions.

Members of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby Homes have expressed their disappointment at the Government's refusal to publish its full report.

A new package of health measures has been announced for former residents of Mother and Baby Homes.

The Department of Justice has said it now accepts that “on the balance of probabilities”, 14 women with whom it was in dispute did work in the High Park Magdalene Laundry post-1980.

A report on burial practices at Ireland’s main mother and baby homes has been described as “substantial” and will be published once survivors groups have been briefed.

The woollen red cardigan that Connie Robert wore as a child of four before the

The Government will publish a key report on burial practices at Ireland’s main mother and baby homes “as quickly as possible”.