Maeve O'Rourke: Not too late for State to break the secrecy around Mother and Baby Homes

If survivors of mother and baby homes are ever to have justice, the new children's minister must have the bravery to lift the veil of secrecy that hangs over the commission established to investigate their cases.

Survivor Carmel Larkin, 70, stares at an infant’s shoes during a vigil at the Tuam mother and baby home mass burial site on August 25, 2019. Nearly 800 babies and children who died in the home run by Bon Secours nuns were buried there in unmarked graves. Picture: Getty

I admire Children's Minister Roderic O’Gorman for his commitment to human rights and equality. I believe he will want to respond to the impending report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation in a way that recognises — rather than further denies — the rights of people who were forcibly and otherwise unlawfully separated from their families in our recent past.

Many people affected by the commission’s work meet the international-law definition of a victim of enforced disappearance. This is one of the most serious human rights violations possible, involving the abduction or detention of a person with the State’s knowledge or involvement, following which the State refuses to reveal the person’s fate and whereabouts to their relatives.