Campaigners have called on the Government to start excavations at other mother and baby home sites after Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said she is in favour of such a move.

Paul Fitzpatrick remembers former Westmeath and Castlepollard hurler, Donal Devine who passed away in February.

The true picture of what happened in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork may be difficult to hear but it needs to come out, the Bishop of Cloyne, William Crean said yesterday.

Plot owners at one of the country’s most contentious bogs are close to a deal to end their row with the Government.

More than 20 staff at HSE homes for people with severe intellectual disabilities have been suspended or sacked since January 2014 over physical, financial and sexual abuse claims unrelated to the Áras Attracta scandal.

The State’s health service watchdog found unexplained bruising on residents in a HSE-run care home in Westmeath.

DESPITE the much-vaunted promise to cherish all the children of the nation equally, successive governments have been grossly negligent towards young people with mental health problems — the very children who deserve to be cherished above all others. 

The terms of reference for the new investigation into mother and baby homes received a broad welcome — but also criticism over its exclusion of Magdalene Laundries and adoptions involving state hospitals.

Gardaí have recovered cannabis plants worth an estimated €29,000 in County Westmeath.

While some people may warn against judging the past with the knowledge of the present, the Government’s initial probe into mother-and-baby homes shows stark questions were being asked about death rates at the homes 75 years ago.

Two seven-year-old girls have handed ministers a petition signed by 30,000 people demanding a judge lead the inquiry into church-run, state-sanctioned institutions for single mothers.

Babies of unmarried parents were treated as "an inferior sub-species" for decades, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted.

A statutory inquiry is to be set up by the Government into state sanctioned, religious-run institutions used to house pregnant mothers.

The dozens of teddy bears left at the gates of a Cork City mother and baby home in memory of the babies and children who died there, were moved overnight to a Little Angels’ plot within its grounds.

A former mother superior at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home has said its adoptions were not forced, that mothers were well-fed, and that its high historic death rates could be explained by lack of access to antibiotics.

No full-scale audit has ever been carried out into tens of thousands of files given to the State by the religious orders which ran Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes.

The religious order behind three of Ireland’s largest and most notorious mother-and-baby homes is unable to confirm how many children were buried on the sites or if they were all buried in coffins.

According to records held in the archives of the Kerry County Library, in December 1929 the Department of Local Government and Public Health (DLGPH) issued a circular to all Irish local authorities requesting information on "unmarried mothers" in county homes.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he wants to know if there are more mass baby graves at mother-and-baby homes across the country.

Once again, it has taken international press headlines to make the Government address a dirty little secret the State has been aware of decades.

Child death rates in three mother-and-baby homes that were run by religious orders were as high as 50% during the 1940s.

Just when people thought no more revelations remained to be uncovered, a truly shocking spectre — 800 dead babies dumped in a septic tank and innocent infants buried in mass graves — has come back to haunt the Irish State and the Catholic Church.

The Government has bowed to national and international pressure over the scandal of the death of 4,000 babies who were buried in unmarked, unconsecrated and mass graves at homes for unmarried mothers.

In a letter by B Cotton (April 24), which addressed the recent article in the Irish Examiner (April 17) about ‘Catholics for Choice‘, your correspondent states that ”as a practicing Catholic... contraception is banned, because sex was made by God to bring children into the world and not for self-gratification”.

A man in his 20s remains critically ill in hospital after a crash in Co Westmeath in the early hours of this morning.

A man is in a critical condition in hospital following a single-car crash in Co Westmeath overnight.

An emotional Westmeath woman bought back a house for her brother which had been repossessed by the bank.

GARDAÍ have applied to the courts to have an estimated €500,000 worth of documents recovered in a criminal investigation returned to their rightful owner.

SOME 15,000 adoption files held by the Sacred Heart Convent at Bessborough in Cork have yet to be transferred to the Health Service Executive (HSE) — two months after the initial deadline for the transfer.

SOME 15,000 adoption files, including those relating to controversial vaccine trials carried out on children at a mother-and-baby home run by the Sacred Heart Convent at Bessborough in Cork, have yet to be transferred to the HSE.

The parochial hall in Killucan, Co. Westmeath has been destroyed by an overnight fire.

The N4 Mullingar bypass was blocked eastbound between J17 Mullingar West/Castlepollard and the Delvin slip road this evening due to a crash.

Due to flooding in Cork, a number of services are currently being diverted, Bus Éireann said this afternoon.

The majority of services in the country are operating with some delays, particularly in the east where road and weather conditions are difficult, Bus Éireann have said.

Given snowfall in the east of the country, bus services in that region are being monitored on an on-going basis, according to Bus Éireann.

Bus Eireann have said most of their services in the east of the country are operating with some delays, but some local services operating on secondary roads are disrupted.

The weather continues to play havoc with road conditions in the east which are very difficult with most bus services there delayed.

Motorists are being urged to take extreme care on the roads this morning with icy conditions reported in many areas.

DOLE processing times remain at an all-time high despite commitments by the Social Affairs Minister to commit more staff to speed up welfare payments.

NEWLY unemployed people will have to wait until the new year to have their dole applications processed in at least four counties.

Three houses for the mentally ill refurbished to the tune of €500,000 are lying empty because of a staffing freeze, it emerged today.

Raiders wielding knives escaped with cash from a bank in Oldcastle Co Meath, it has been revealed.

HEALTH chiefs are spending €153 million a year renting buildings while properties they own lie idle and fall into ruin.