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needs to be done right across the State to ensure that survivors, their families and campaigners receive justice. I am thinking particularly of Bessborough in my own county and city. We still do not know where over 800 children and many mothers are buried. The decision … were shocked and angered in the past when legislation sealed the burial records of institutions such as the mother and baby home in Bessborough. The Minister has the opportunity in this legislation. This is appropriate legislation to amend to ensure that is reversed. I encourage the Minister

where it is satisfied that burials have taken place and there is evidence that those burials are manifestly inappropriate. In the case of Bessborough, I am advised that the legal threshold cannot currently be met because the location of many burials remains unknown. However, there are significant … meaningful planning protections in respect of the specific application at Bessborough, namely: a forensic archaeological monitoring strategy is mandatory; a forensic archaeologist must be present throughout excavation works; and, as the Deputy said, all works must cease immediately if human remains are discovered. That is obviously designed

absolutely reprehensible that planning permission has been granted for apartments on the site of the former mother and baby home at Bessborough. We have 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough still missing. Now 140 apartments are going to be built on a mass grave. We need … disgusting. Its language is callous. It minimises the horror and the suffering of the poor people who were incarcerated and died at Bessborough. The State needs to intervene. The Taoiseach was clear when he said Cork City Council should have bought the site. What needs to happen

read with interest of this item on contraception. I cannot help noticing it is happening on the day the decision on Bessborough has been made. Considering the whole mother and baby scenario that happened in this country and the devastation faced by so many people born in Bessborough … children in Bessborough and do not know where their children are, it is poignant to have this conversation today. It is fantastic that women aged 17 to 35 can get free contraception. That is excellent but I agree with those who have said it should be extended

First of all, the pain felt by survivors and families connected to Bessborough is profound. It is enduring. Neither I nor the rest of the Government has ever minimised that reality. I would argue that the last Government did more on these issues than any previous Government … remains fully committed to survivor engagement, memorialisation and accountability. We still do not know where the children who died are buried, including at Bessborough. As the Deputy said, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes examined the Bessborough site extensively, including using cartographic and archival research

want to take up where we left off yesterday. When explaining why the Government was not going to buy Bessborough the Taoiseach said: Excavation without evidence of location is neither feasible nor lawful [because] Under the Institutional Burials Act 2022, the Government can only [start an excavation] where … cannot have been the only person listening who was stunned. The Government knows that 859 children and 19 women who were incarcerated at Bessborough are missing, presumed dead. It knows the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes said it was highly likely that burials had taken

decision by An Coimisiún Pleanála to grant planning permission for apartments at Bessborough is disgusting. This represents yet another failure, a betrayal by the State of the thousands of women and children who were incarcerated and abused there and of the 859 children and 19 women who remain … archeological assessment carried out by the commission has never been published. It remains sealed, along with the entire archive of documents relating to Bessborough. No one can access those documents, not even An Coimisiún Pleanála. The fact the latter can grant planning permission and simultaneously conclude that

Cross. Deputy Barry Ward - to discuss removing the means test for carer's allowance. Deputy Séamus McGrath - to discuss the State acquiring the Bessborough site in Cork city to provide a memorial. Deputy Jen Cummins - to discuss the future of James Weir nurses' home, Cork Street, Dublin … Glanmire, Cork, leased to the FAI by Cork County Council. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan - to discuss a potential State purchase of the Bessborough site in Blackrock, Cork city. Deputy Louis O'Hara - to discuss the need for a 24-hour rapid response vehicle at Tuam ambulance base. Deputies

heartbroken to be standing here today having learned of the disgraceful decision to continue with the plans to build in Bessborough. For 923 children, being born in Bessborough was a death sentence, and the burial sites of 859 of those children have never been found. If this development

Yesterday, the window for submitting observations on the development in Bessborough expired but the window for this Government to act has not. Behind those stone walls, women and children were put through hell and for 76 years the State turned a blind eye. Today, the Government is doing … same, as if the grim legacy of Bessborough can be buried under apartment blocks. It cannot. Eight hundred and fifty-nine babies who died there have never been found and are likely in unmarked graves on the estate. There has never been a comprehensive investigation. Survivors have been

members' business shall be the Motion re An Garda Síochána, selected by the Labour Party. Thursday's business shall be: - Statements on the Bessborough Development (not to exceed 2 hours and 25 minutes) Thursday evening business shall be the Second Stage of the Organisation of Working Time (Leave … Dáil on its rising today shall adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 14th April, 2026; and 2. the Statements on the Bessborough Development shall not exceed 2 hours and 25 minutes and the following arrangements shall apply: (a) the statements, not including the Ministerial response, shall

ensure the protection of unrecorded burial sites. That is an issue that must be dealt with by the local authority in whose area Bessborough is placed. The action plan also contains commitments in relation to dignified, local memorialisation of known or agreed burial sites. There is no point … being able to identify burial grounds within them. Otherwise, we are just prolonging the suffering and pain of individuals who were in Bessborough

mother and baby homes. These are deeply important matters of dignity and justice for families seeking answers. It is important to mention the Bessborough mother and baby home and the denial of justice for the families of those buried there, who will not receive the same recognition

cessation of the financial contribution scheme in Dublin North-West. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan - to discuss a potential State purchase of the Bessborough site in Blackrock, Cork city. Deputy Louis O'Hara - to discuss the need for a 24-hour rapid response vehicle at Tuam ambulance base. Deputy

workforce development plan proposals by SNAs. Deputies Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, Séamus McGrath and Pádraig O'Sullivan - To discuss the State acquiring the Bessborough site in Cork city to provide a memorial. Deputies Gary Gannon, Ruairí Ó Murchú· - To discuss issues being created in the courts system

know why. We know that we have this information for Tuam and for Sean Ross Abbey. We do not have it for Bessborough. We do not know why. The Taoiseach's whole argument amounts to "We simply don't have enough information to meet the threshold for excavation

Will he ask the Attorney General to order an inquest into the deaths of children and women in Bessborough, as he has the power to do under section 4 of the Coroner's Act 1962? Critically, will the Government CPO the land

through compulsory purchase order. It is important that we have a debate. I am asking for statements and questions and answers on Bessborough

implications of a united Ireland. A request was made for additional time, and that was facilitated. Requests were also made for statements on Bessborough. I checked with the Minister. She is away on Government duty and it is not possible to have those statements this week. We have

received an apology yet, today, families are still pleading with the Government not to permit apartments to be built on the grounds of Bessborough, where hundreds of children remain unaccounted for. Survivors of child sexual abuse in our schools received apologies yet women abused in Dunderrow National School

must feel like to not know if your baby, your sibling or your niece or nephew is buried at the site in Bessborough or, potentially, was sold abroad? Like Carmel Cantwell said at the weekend, the truth lies in the grounds. We are talking about some

thank the Minister for that. I also welcome to the Chamber any persons in the Public Gallery who are associated with the Bessborough development

this was ruled by An Bord Pleanála as being unsuitable. The fact of the matter is that the Bessborough site requires a national intervention to prevent development. The State has obligations under the ECHR to investigate this and it should be responsible for surveying and protecting the site

commemorations and speak of being part of a republican ilk, we know each one of those lines. The failures that befell babies in Bessborough were similar to those of the women and children who were incarcerated, were forced to engage in vaccine trials and forced adoptions, and were

Human Rights to find any bodies that exist and bring them back in a suitable manner for the families of those affected. Bessborough was a site of systemic oppression, and the Government has made sure that that has not actually happened. In the letter the Clann Project pointed