Bessborough apartments row has 'put government  under real pressure'

A campaign to stop the building of apartments on the grounds of the former Bessborough mother and baby institution has put the Government under real pressure, a packed Cork cinema has heard.

A capacity crowd of 120 people attended last Wednesday night's screening in the Arc Cinema of the documentary firm ‘Stolen’, which tells the stories of several survivors of mother and baby institutions.

The screening, organised by the Cork branch of People Before Profit, saw tickets snapped up as soon as the event was announced.

A question-and-answer session followed the film, and the panel included the film’s director, Morgo Harkin, Bessborough survivor Sarah O’Herlihy, People Before Profit parliamentary leader Richard Boyd Barrett, and Social Democrats Dublin city councillor Noelle Brown.

Mr Boyd Barrett was born in the Highgate mother and baby institution in North London and adopted and raised in Ireland.

Ms Brown was born in Bessborough and has been to the forefront of the campaign to prevent development of the site’s remaining 60 acres.

Between 1922 and 1998, Bessborough House in Ballinure was operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary as Ireland’s largest mother and baby institution.

In 2021, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes found that burial records for 857 children and 19 women oare missing from Bessborough, and it was “highly likely” that some were buried on the estate.

In July, An Coimisiún Pleanála substantially upheld planning permission which was earlier granted by Cork City Council, clearing the way for the building of 106 apartments on the former Bessborough grounds.

After that, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told this newspaper he had called on the council to engage with the owners of the lands to “explore all options for the future of the site”.

A campaign led by the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home Support Group saw more than 1,200 people gather in the city centre in sweltering July heat to oppose the development.

Mr Boyd Barrett said the pressure exerted by the campaign was beginning to bear fruit, but he had little faith or trust in the Government.

“The capacity of the State not to listen to survivors is one that leaves me convinced that we just gotta keep the pressure up,” he said.

“Left to their own devices, we've seen governments again and again putting the powerful (first).”