Courtney McGrailStaff Reporter
The Bon Secours sisters have confirmed they will “comply fully” with a commission of investigation into mother and baby homes here.
A spokesperson for the order told The Irish Catholic the nuns “intend to comply fully with the investigation”.
The Government has announced that the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes will extend its probe from the 1920s to as late as 1998.
The terms of reference, announced by Minister for Children James Reilly, also include powers to examine illegal adoptions.
The probe, chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy, will mostly hear evidence in private although individuals can also request to have a hearing in public.
The minister, who expects the inquiry to take three years, said “as a State we had failed to come to terms with a harrowing reality in our past; the manner in which single women and their children were treated in mother and baby homes, how they came to be there in the first place and the circumstances of their departure from the homes”.
The investigation was promised after shock revelations that 800 children died at the mother and baby home run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam in Galway from the 1920s to the early 1960s.