Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2021-01-13
============================================================

Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

The front page of today's Irish Examiner lists the 923 children who died in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. The burial place of only 64 children has been established. The commission has found that some of the 859 children who are unaccounted for are probably buried on the grounds. Unbelievably, there are planning applications for development on this site. I have raised this with the Taoiseach before and, needless to say, it cannot be allowed to go ahead. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, announced legislation for the dignified exhumation of the children in the mass grave at Tuam. Will the Government introduce similar legislation for Bessborough? Can the Taoiseach assure people that these developments cannot go ahead?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-01-13