Mother and Baby Homes inquiry ‘does not want extra burden’

IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The judge-led inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes does not want to be burdened by including two more institutions in its investigations, a campaigner has claimed.

Dr Niall Meehan, whose research helped uncover the scale of infant deaths at Dublin’s Bethany Home, launched a withering attack on Judge Yvonne Murphy for failing to recommend the inclusion of the Westbank Orphanage in Wicklow and the Braemar Rescue Home for Protestant Girls in Cork.

He claimed he was told by a member of staff that the inquiry would be overburdened if it increased its workload at this stage.

“The dead children are witness to our determination. While the forgotten survivors assembled here and throughout the world hold these graves they will never be at peace,” he said.

The Mother and Baby inquiry was set up after revelations last year about a mass grave at a Catholic run home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Co Galway, where 796 infants died between 1925 and 1961.

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