The Cabinet will not approve publication of the much-anticipated Mother and Baby Homes report until mid-January.
The report, which was expected to be published in recent weeks, will now not go before Cabinet until the week commencing January 11th, the Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said.
The matter was raised in the Dáil on Thursday morning and Mr O'Gorman said he received the final 3,000-page report at the end of October. Moves to publish it are now at “an advanced stage”, he said.
Mr O’Gorman also expressed concern about the planning application for lands attached to the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.
“I’m not going to say more about it now but I’m very aware of what’s happening there,” he said.
The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, established in 2015, looked into the treatment and abuse of women and children in 18 mother and baby homes and four county homes over a period of decades until the 1990s.
Speaking during question time in the Dáil, Mr O’Gorman said he had been talking to a significant number of survivors who expressed different views about publication.
“This Christmas is going to be a difficult and unusual Christmas and with the significance of this report it was clear to me that bringing it and publishing it close to Christmas wouldn’t be appropriate.
“That’s why we’re giving clarity today that we have a specific date, the second week of January.”
He also said he planned to bring a memo to Cabinet in the week of January 11th on the general scheme or the Institutional Burials Bill and refer it to the Oireachtas Committee on Children for pre-legislative scrutiny.
Stakeholders letter
Separately, Mr O’Gorman has written to stakeholders informing them of the timeline for publication.
The letter, seen by The Irish Examiner, states that Mr O’Gorman has “listened to the views expressed regarding publication of the Commission’s final report, and I am conscious of the understandable anxiety surrounding the timescale for publication.”
“I am therefore writing today to inform you it is my intention to publish the final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes on the week commencing January 11, 2021,” he said.
“In line with the commitments made to former residents and their families, it is important that you are the first to be notified of the plans to publish the report and how to access it,” the minister wrote.
Galway historian and campaigner Catherine Corless told The Examiner that she feared Cork’s Bessborough site could have similar burial practices to those in Tuam where she established that 796 children were buried in a septic tank at the former home.
A developer plans to build more than 200 apartments on a parcel of land near the former home which campaigners believe overlaps a children’s burial plot.
