Cork City Council has now confirmed that it intends to work with the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation in relation to any future works at the site in Bessborough

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.