30/12/2018 -Tuam Home Survivors Network welcomes confirmation by An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, that excavation work will begin on the site of the former Tuam Mother and Baby Home during the latter half of 2019. We note that experts will be appointed in the interim and legislation passed in order to carry out the works which will commence on a phased basis.
It is now four and a half years since Alison O’Reilly broke the story of Tuam to the world press on Sunday the 25th of May, 2014. In March 2017, Minister Katherine Zappone advised that the remains uncovered during the test excavation dated to the period of the home (1925-1961) and were of babies and children aged between 35 fetal weeks and three years. This revelation, while confirming what many survivors and family members suspected, brought a new urgency to the situation. Finally, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon’s report focused on the human rights which continue from cradle to beyond the grave attributing to the #796 in an effort to provide much needed dignity and respect to the lost children of Tuam and six mothers whose burial place remains unknown.
22/10/2018 - Birth and Death Certificates for the former Tuam Home number 1101 births within the Home and 796 deaths within the Home. Of those recorded as dying within the Home, slightly in excess of 79% failed to reach the age of one year.
The graveyard records of Galway County Council disclose burial places for just two of those children. Despite the previous knowledge of both Galway County Council and the Bon Secours Order, the presence of large numbers of infant remains was finally confirmed by an exploratory dig at the Tuam site in October 2016. It further confirmed that the resting place of those remains had, for some decades, served as repository for sewerage.
27/08/2018 - The publication today of a letter, by Katherine Zappone, which she handed to the Pope is nothing more than a publicity stunt.
She writes in the preamble to that letter: I am the Minister responsible for the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. This is of course an absurd statement. Ms Zappone is merely the Minister to which the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes is to report. In a different country, such a Commission would be reporting to a Justice Minister. What Minister Zappone has been responsible for more than two years, is a dishonest exercise in respect of the Tuam pit, which has prolonged the agony of survivors and those whose relatives may be buried there, by standing in the way of an exhumation.
In the course of her letter to the Pope, she attempts to maintain the myth that she with her Cabinet colleagues can decide the future of the mass grave at Tuam. To be clear once more, the only office-holder with jurisdiction over the mass grave at Tuam is the local Coroner. Where a Coroner fails to convene an Inquest, the Attorney General has under s24 of the Coroners Act 1961, the power indeed obligation, to appoint another Coroner to do so. Neither the previous Attorney General Maire Whelan nor the current incumbent Seamus Woulfe, have fulfilled their obligations to do so. Minister Zappone has sat in Cabinet with both and cannot be unaware of the position.
08/08/2018 - The following is a copy of a letter sent to Mr Séamus Woulfe, Attorney General by Peter Mulryan dated 7th August 2018.
...
Mr Seamus Woulfe SC
Office of the Attorney General,
Merrion Street,
Dublin 2.
Dear Mr Woulfe,
Further to my recent letter.
Dr Val Costello as Coroner for North Galway continues to fail in his obligations to convene an Inquest into the mass grave at Tuam and the deaths of up to 800 infants.
Where he has so clearly failed, there is a clear obligation on you to appoint a Coroner to convene an Inquest into the Tuam deaths. It is not up to me to cite the legal argument or statutory basis under which that duty falls on you, it must be assumed that you as Attorney are reasonably aware of the law and of the significance of the Tuam mass grave.
07/07/2018 - The Report of the so-called "Consultative process" on the future of the Tuam site is worthless, a crudely designed mechanism to delay or prevent what clearly requires to be done.
This Report commissioned by Minister Zappone using Galway County Council as her agent, seeks to further the myth that the Minister and Government in general has the power to decide the future of the mass grave at Tuam.
04/01/2018 - The members of the Tuam Home Survivors Network have given careful consideration to the Report of the Expert Technical Group Report on Options and Appropriate Courses of Action available to Government at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, Co. Galway, published by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone, T.D. on December 12th 2017.
04/01/2018 - The members of the Tuam Home Survivors Network have given careful consideration to the Report of the Expert Technical Group Report on Options and Appropriate Courses of Action available to Government at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, Co. Galway, published by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone, T.D. on December 12th 2017.