Draft legislation for mother and baby homes to go before Cabinet

Digital Desk Staff

Draft legislation to allow for the excavation and exhumation of remains on mother and baby home sites is to be brought to Cabinet next week.

As the Irish Examiner reports, Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman will publish the long-awaited Institutional Burials Bill immediately after Cabinet on Tuesday.

The legislation, once passed, will allow for work to begin on the site of the former Tuam mother and baby home, where the remains of almost 800 infants and young children are believed to have been buried in a sewage tank.

Writing to survivors of mother and baby homes on Friday morning, Mr O'Gorman said: "This important and sensitive legislation has been a priority for me.

"I have taken time to meet with and reflect carefully on the feedback from those most closely affected by this issue and have made substantial and meaningful changes to the legislation to address their concerns."

Mr O'Gorman hopes that the Bill will move as quickly as possible through the Oireachtas to allow for "timely enactment and implementation" later in the year.

The Minister will host an online meeting with survivors and their families before the Bill is published next Tuesday to provide them with the full details of the proposed legislation.

Campaigners and survivors have previously raised issues around the general scheme of the Bill and had expressed serious concern about the role of the coroner in relation to exhumations.

Last year six UN special rapporteurs and two chair rapporteurs have demanded clarity on whether the Government will order inquests into the deaths and burials of mother and baby home residents.

Detailing issues with the Burials Bill, the group said it was "concerned that this proposed new legislation would, if adopted, in practice, negatively impact upon the rights to truth and justice of affected individuals, whose relatives may be buried in these sites."