A statuette at the grotto at the site of the former Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, Galway . Image: Alamy Stock Photo A statuette at the grotto at the site of the former Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, Galway . Image: Alamy Stock Photo EIGHT UN HUMAN rights bodies have said they are concerned that legislation proposed by the Irish Government may “create additional obstacles” to investigating deaths at mother and baby homes and related institutions.
Survivors and legal experts have raised concerns about a number of aspects of the proposed legislation, including the role of the coroner and the possible exclusion of certain institutions.
“We are concerned that these conditions may not effectively facilitate victims and relatives’ access to information about the circumstances of their relatives’ burials. The discretionary power eventually granted to Government officials in this matter is a source of concern and would fail to ensure an impartial, effective and transparent system and process of investigation.”
The General Scheme of the Bill provides for an exception where “the lapse of time since the last known burial exceeds 70 years, in relation to the date on which the circumstances of the burials concerned became widely known”. “The views of the relatives of the deceased are only one of the reasons to be considered in applying the proportionality test.”
The Commission’s final report confirmed that about 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation. She noted that the Attorney General “should by now have directed inquests under existing legislation, that access to personal records needs to be unqualified and immediate, and that the redress scheme must respond to the whole range of human rights abuses suffered by people in the institutions and family separation system”.
“The Irish Government is committed to a comprehensive and sincere response to the Tuam site which, inlight of the unique and uncertain situation which exists, can only be progressed in a step-by-step, phased manner based on the real time technical and forensic information emerging from the intervention.
“It does not remove the obligation on the coroner to hold an inquest as may be required under the 1962 Act and, where the remains show evidence of violent or unnatural death, the Director overseeing the intervention must immediately inform the coroner within whose district the remains were exhumed and An Garda Síochána. As such, the statutory obligations of the coroner would continue to apply in these circumstances.
orlaryan Of course it will, that’s the whole point! Protect the Church and the abusers in fact give them a new Children’s hospital to be in charge of😡
Oh I'm sure the obstacles were entirely accidental, right? Like the swift justice we see from every other Irish tribunal
What are the UN ‘experts’ doing about the murders of Palestinians?