Planning refused for fourth apartment block at Bessborough site

The Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance said the State must acquire the site, so that the burial area could be preserved

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes had found that 923 babies born at or associated with Bessborough had died there, with the burial place of most of the children still unknown. File photo: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie

Planning permission for an eight-storey apartment block at the site of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork City has been refused.

An application to build 179 apartments in three blocks on a 3.7 acre site in the grounds of Bessborough had already been turned down last May and in a decision outlining its latest ruling, An Bord Pleanala said allowing the eight-storey block "would result in a haphazard form of development which would result in an isolated apartment block in a protected landscape."