IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Saturday, March 04, 2017
By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter
The crucial point to note here is that despite all the hand-wringing by politicians, and the repeated utterances of that word “shocking” — the State was well aware of issues around infant deaths and Tuam long before Ms Corless’ work became global news, writes Conal Ó’Fartharta
“Shocking” was the word used by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission and Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone in reacting to the discovery of “significant quantities” of human remains at Tuam.
It’s a word that crops up again and again in relation to the story of Ireland’s mother and baby home system.
That very word was used in an unpublished internal HSE report in 2012 to describe the “wholly epidemic” levels of child death in Cork’s Bessborough Mother and Baby Home — 472 infants and 10 women in a 19-year period.
Two government departments were aware of this information — but an inquiry wasn’t launched for almost another two years.
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