Research using dead babies queried as early as 2002

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) and Department of Health were questioned on the use of dead children for research in Irish universities years before the scandal became public.

It emerged last October that more than 450 dead babies, the majority from St Patrick’s mother-and-baby home and its sister hospital St Kevin’s in Dublin, were dissected in the medical departments of Irish universities without the knowledge or permission of their mothers. Many of the children were buried years later in the Angels’ Plot in Glasnevin, registered as “anatomical subjects.”

The universities involved were the Royal College of Surgeons, Trinity College Dublin, UCD, UCC and then UCG.