The State feared a “public scandal” in relation to the alarming number of children dying in mother and baby homes — 70 years before the Tuam babies scandal made worldwide headlines.

The religious order that ran the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home reported significantly higher numbers of infant deaths to state inspectors than it recorded privately.

Concerns that death records were falsified in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home so children could “be brokered in clandestine adoption arrangements” at home and abroad were raised in an internal HSE report in 2012.

Tens of thousands of people affected by the mother and baby homes scandal risk being excluded from a State investigation into the decades-long hidden crisis.

A government minister ordered that no pregnant women be sent to Bessborough mother-and-baby home nearly 70 years ago.

As a State, we are either unwilling or unable to face up to our past, and our shameful treatment of women, writes ConallÓ Fátharta

A former general manager of business banking with AIB has consented before the Commercial Court to entry of €37.2m judgment against him in favour of Nama over unpaid loans mostly issued for property investments.

A former general manager of business banking with AIB is being pursued by a Nama company for judgments for more than €50m arising from unpaid loans, mostly issued for property development.

Cork’s city councillors have forced through several strategic changes to a major blueprint that will guide development in the busy Mahon suburb for the next 20 years.

NEIL YOUNG CORK:

Thousands of Irish women have endured the trauma of forced adoptions, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

Four brothers who lost their mother to Alzheimer’s have helped their father organise a fundraising cycle in her memory to help other families caring for a loved one with dementia.

Ireland’s “queen of country music” has invited her fans to join her for a massive party on the Costa del Sol to celebrate her 50 years in the music industry.

From Upton Park to Páirc Uí Chaoimh — that’s the road Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan is beginning this weekend.

SIXTY-SEVEN children have been admitted to adult psychiatric wards in the first half of this year, the HSE has revealed.

FILES relating to controversial vaccine trials carried out on children at a Mother and Baby Home run by the Sacred Heart Convent in Bessboro in Cork will not be transferred to the HSE.

THE Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) advocacy group has said it is “greatly concerned” that CORI (The Conference of Religious of Ireland) has refused to meet and discuss the group’s campaign for an apology and a redress scheme for survivors of the Magdalene laundries.

TWO hundred young people were admitted to adult psychiatric units last year, seven of which were involuntary admissions, in a practice branded “inappropriate and unhelpful” by health professionals.

MULTI-million euro property sales are completing this month on several Cork and Kilkenny properties.

A CHILD and adolescent psychiatric unit closed during the health cuts of the 1980s has been re-opened by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

A CHILD and adolescent psychiatric unit closed during the health cuts of the 1980s has been re-opened by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

THE State and its agencies are Cork’s biggest employer, a major new report has found.