Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-15
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

A number of years ago, I met with Maureen Considine and some survivors in Bessborough. Deputy Cairns has often said we should talk to survivors. Their perspective is far different from hers in respect of Bessborough. I refer her to an article in today's Irish Examiner by Maureen Considine in respect of this issue. She established the Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance, CSSA, in respect of this issue - in terms of the burials in Bessborough. The fundamental issue they wanted was to first of all establish where their babies were buried. Their sense was:
The mothers at the heart of our alliance are being overshadowed by an abstract human rights debate. Any demand for further disturbance of remains without their explicit input and consent is not an act of justice; it is a repetition of the original trauma where an institution exerted control over their children's burial. These mothers have inherent rights to privacy and space to grieve in peace.
The Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance wanted to find out where the mothers' babies were buried. They were involved in legal submissions to a different application and employed experts and so forth. By the way, they do not believe that the current area of lands, which is the subject matter of the current An Bord Pleanála recommendation, is where the babies are buried. That is following their work with the experts they availed of. There are different perspectives from different survivors, which Deputy Cairns has ignored in all of her presentations. I also refer the Deputy to an article by Ann O'Gorman, based in Limerick, who lost her baby when it died 20 minutes after birth. The Deputy should read that article, which was in the Irish Independent some time ago. The point is Deputy Cairns has an extraordinary habit of distorting things that I say and conflating them. We are talking about 60 acres here. The planning permission for housing is not for the entirety of the 60 acres. It is for a part of it. There are two other lots of land. There are State services on the land. One hundred people are working in different services in Bessborough. There is childcare there, and so forth. It has been an active area of human activity for a long time-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-15