IRELAND
Evening Echo
Rob McNamara
A woman who was interned at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in the late 1960s and was separated from her son for over 50 years has said that more needs to be done to help surviving mothers and a Garda investigation should be established if criminal activity is determined by excavations.
Joan McDermott of Irish First Mothers, originally from Mitchelstown, said the Government needs to provide redress for mothers, set up a specific department to help children and mothers with reunification and consider a criminal investigation into what she calls a “mass genocide” of children at Mother and Baby Homes.
While Ms McDermott welcomed the decision by Childen’s Minister Katherine Zappone this week to appoint a team of international experts in DNA testing – who will use who remote sensing to to determine whether a full excavation and potential identification of more than 800 remains is possible – to advise on the Mother and Baby home burial site in Tuam, Galway, she believes it is not far reaching enough.
“There was no mention of the mothers…Why didn’t Minister Zappone make any reference to support, counselling and putting something in situ for the mothers,” she said.
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