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Prof James M Smith says that the Church either knew what was happening in Tuam and did nothing or that its bishops never fulfilled their pastoral duty under Canon Law

The President hopes the commission into mother and baby homes will “put the truth on the record”.

There were 470 infant deaths recorded at the Bessborough home from 1934 to 1953, but the rates recorded internally are lower than those on the State register, writes Conall Ó Fatharta

Controlling population by brutal means has been the norm in the world since the dawn of time, writes Victoria White.

Mother and baby home campaigners have said as many as 180 institutions that dealt with unmarried mothers and children need to be examined by the commission.

An investigation into mother and baby homes could be widened to take in far more institutions as the Government has ordered a scoping exercise into the scandal.

Infants were taken from their mothers and sold, starved, trafficked, and in some cases denied life itself, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in relation to the Tuam buried babies scandal.

Update 6.25pm: Gardaí say they are in contact with the Galway coroner in relation to the discovery of a significant number of human remains on the site of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam.

“Uncharted waters” is how one senior garda described the situation facing the authorities in responding to Tuam.

Concern has been expressed that any evidence given to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission is not admissible in any future criminal proceedings.

There has been much comment on the need for the terms of reference for the Mother and Baby Homes Commission to be expanded.

THIS society is again transfixed by scandal. Last week’s confirmation of a mass grave at the Bon Secours home in Tuam, that closed nearly 60 years ago and the belated acknowledgement that “Grace” had suffered decades of abuse reopened wounds that were no more than partially healed.

Identifying the remains of young children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home would be technically very difficult and the prospect of establishing causes of death highly unlikely, according to forensic and Garda sources.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou is backing calls for the Mother and Baby Home inquiry to include the Magdalene Laundries.

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.

The order which ran the mother-and-baby home in Bessborough in Cork initially refused to transfer files relating to controversial vaccine trials to the HSE.

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 Bishop of Cork and Ross has joined the Archbishop of Dublin in calling for an independent public inquiry into the deaths of children at religious-run mother-and-baby homes.