Mother-and-baby inquiry - Objectivity and honesty essential

Yesterday afternoon’s announcement that a statutory commission will inquire into unfolding scandals in religious-run mother-and-baby homes is very welcome despite its inevitability and the horrors it will undoubtedly uncover.

Its findings are unlikely to strengthen this society’s idea of self-worth but if they force us to confront the dysfunction at the heart of our treatment of vulnerable children and women then something of worth might be achieved.

The chilling story — the remains of 796 infants believed buried at a home run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam; forced adoptions often secret or illegal; children offered and used as guinea pigs in vaccine trials — is so utterly appalling that any other response would not have been acceptable and would have perpetuated the dishonesty, cruelty, and institutionalised misogyny that underlines these horrors.