[The mother and child home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam, Co Galway]

RTE’s Drivetime reporter Philip Boucher Hayes writes:

“This figure of 800 dead babies (which incidentally excludes the stillborn) has been generated, and double checked, by an arm of government….
…This does not prove, as some have alleged, that the nuns negligently let children starve to death. But it does establish what some seek to deny – that there is every reason to believe up to 800 bodies were in the literal sense of the word unceremoniously discarded there.

That is not the view of the Gardaí though. They have set their faces against an investigation without apparently considering any of this evidence. They sent me the following statement this afternoon, even after the government had made its own announcement about a review of the evidence.

‘Hello Philip, The grounds in Tuam were being surveyed in 2012 and bones were found, they are historical burials going back to Famine times,there is no suggestion of any impropiety and there is no Garda investigation . Also there is no confirmation from any source that there are between 750 and 800 bodies present.’

There was a discovery of famine era bones in the vicinity in 2011 as “The Home” was a workhouse up until the turn of the century. The location of that site is about 100 yards away from the septic tank burial site. So the Gardaí are misinformed on this or have decided to find a reason not to investigate any closer. Because to claim that there is no source confirming the presence of any bodies there is to wilfully ignore myriad evidence in the public domain.

Tuam Babies: The Evidence (Philip Boucher Hayes)