Labour leader Bacik shares her concern over plans for Bessborough apartments

Developing the grounds of a former Cork mother and baby institution without ascertaining whether or not children are buried at the site would be akin to building on the Tuam site where 77 bodies have been found so far, according to Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik.

Ms Bacik was visiting the Bessborough site where, last February, Cork City Council granted planning permission to Estuary View Enterprises to build 140 apartments on the site.

That decision is currently the subject of two appeals to An Coimisiún Pleanála, with a decision due by this Thursday, July 9.

Between 1922 and 1998, Bessborough was run as a mother and baby institution by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

In that time, 9,768 mothers and 8,938 babies were admitted there.

In 2021, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission found that 923 children died at Bessborough, or shortly after being discharged.

The commission found that burial records exist for only 64 of those children, concluding that it was “highly likely” that some of the missing 859 children had been buried on the institution’s grounds.

The original Bessborough estate was 200 acres, and 60 now remain undeveloped.

One of those appealing the council’s planning decision is Carmel Cantwell, whose brother William was born in Bessborough in 1960 and who died three weeks later.

The other appeal was lodged by Peter Horgan, a Labour Party city councillor, who grew up near the mother and baby institution. He and Cork Labour senator Laura Harmon had asked Ms Bacik to walk the grounds with Ms Cantwell.

Ms Bacik said she was “very concerned” at the prospect of planning permission being upheld on the site.

“If that happens, we may see building commencing here without any truth being established about where babies’ remains are buried,” 

she said.

The stipulation placed on the permission that building should cease should any bodies be found, seemed, she said, “appallingly insensitive” and “the wrong way around”, adding a full examination was needed before development.

Ms Bacik said that developing the site without first searching for human remains would be like building now on the Tuam site, where 77 bodies have been recovered so far.

“Why is Bessborough different?” Ms Bacik asked. 

“Why are we being so rightly sensitive and careful about human remains in Tuam, and it seems in Bessborough so cavalier with this very sensitive site?”

She said she found it “incredibly poignant” to see so many tributes to the children and mothers who had died.

“This is very recent history, and we need to do right by survivors,” she said.