Excavations focused on two areas, including the site of a former workhouse yard and the high stone boundary wall at the site.

It comes just days after an even larger apartment complex in a separate part of the Bessborough grounds in Cork was refused planning.

The Irish government is expected to start an awareness campaign to encourage more people to apply for redress.

Families with relatives who were in the Co Galway institution have been informed of the timeline of work.

Patrick Naughton, 70, was reunited with his birth mother Christina ‘Chrissie’ Tully in 2013.

Daniel Mac Sweeney, a former International Committee of the Red Cross envoy, will lead a new independent office