New report to examine findings of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes

A REPORT being published tomorrow will examine the findings of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

The Commission report, published earlier this year, included Bessborough in Cork city, where more than 9,700 women were admitted between 1922 and 1998.

Work on the report began in March and has been conducted by 25 academics from Ireland and the UK, including two from UCC.

The report is expected to be critical of the work of the Commission of Investigation and its subsequent report.

The publication of the report comes just weeks after one of the members of the Commission, Professor Mary Daly, addressed an online academic event hosted by Oxford University in June.

Following the event, Labour leader Alan Kelly called in the Dáil for the Commission’s report to be “repudiated”.

Survivors have criticised the report since it was published, critical that the report found there was a lack of evidence of forced adoptions and abuse within Mother and Baby Homes.

The report published in January found that an estimated 9,000 children died in 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998, when the last such home closed.

According to the report, 923 children born in or associated with Bessborough died in infancy or early childhood. 

Most of their burial places are not known.