Mother and Baby Homes Commission seeks another year to finish report

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The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation is seeking an extension of one year to complete its report which was due to be submitted next month.

The Commission was set up in 2015 to investigate Mother and Baby Homes after revelations made by Catherine Corless about the Tuam home the year before hand.

On top of the Tuam Home it is looking into the past of 13 other institutions.

It was originally meant to deliver its report last February, but requested an extra year to complete its work.

According to the the Irish Times the Commission has submitted a request to the government for another year’s extension.

It’s reported that the reason for these delays is the sheer volume of work involved in investigating these Mother and Baby Homes from 1922 to 1998.

An interim report was produced by the Commission in 2017 which said that human remains had been discovered at most of the sites at the Tuam home aged from 35 weeks to two or three years old.

It’s believed there could be as many as 796 children buried at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home which operated until 1961.

Mother and Baby Homes were typically run by nuns, such as the Bon Secours sisters who operated the Tuam Home.

Unmarried women who became pregnant gave birth there, and the children were usually adopted to other families, often abroad.

The Mother and Baby Homes have also been caught up in the illegal adoptions scandal, with the revelation that adoption papers, as well as birth an death certificates were forged to hide what happened to a child.

While the Commission continues its investigation into the history of the Mother and Baby Homes, the Tuam home site is die to be excavated.

Excavation works to exhume the children buried there, with the goal of identifying them, is set to begin later this year.