On July 9th it was announced that planning permission was granted by Cork City Council for the building of 106 apartments at the site of Bessborough Mother and Baby institution.
A site of (continuing) harm and trauma, many questions remain unanswered about the many human rights and other abuses that took place there. This includes the locations of the burials of the remains of hundreds of babies who died at the institution. Open between 1922 and 1998, the 2021 Mother and Baby Home Commission report (itself the subject of much criticism) reported that 923 children died but that there were only burial records for 64 of those children. The Report also found that it is likely that some of those children are buried on the site at an unknown location. The same location where apartments are now to be built.
These are missing children. Nearly a thousand of them. These children and their mothers suffered human rights abuses, and continue to suffer them. Yet instead of investigating these mass violations of potentially the right to life, the right to be free of torture, free of inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to healthcare, the right not to be held in involuntary detention, the list goes on, the state continues to fail. And it is a failure for which the state – and Cork City Council – should feel deep shame. It is a failure that could be remedied. Treating these children with care, respect and dignity is a small ask of the state.
The island of Ireland has many traditions around death and the rituals that we undertake around burials. These children have not been afforded this basic custom. Practices that are held dearly and closely by many. Practices that should be extended to these children.
The state chooses not to.
The Clann Project’s petition to force the government into action is available here: https://clannproject.org/savebessborough/
Below are the full statements from the Special Advocate for Survivors of Institutional Abuse as well as from the FMR and the Clann Project on the decision of Cork City Council
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The Special Advocate is shocked at the abhorrent decision today by An Coimisiún Pleanála not to overturn the decision to grant planning to the building of 140 apartments on grounds where 859 children’s remains are disappeared.
Despite two Appeals submitted to An Coimisiún Pleanála, over 160 objections to the proposed development, and a huge wave of public, civic and political support on this matter in recent months, the decision to refuse to hold an oral hearing on a matter of such sensitivity and importance to Survivors and their families is shameful.
Patricia Carey said
“It is critical that the Government intervene immediately and directly to stop this development proceeding and to work with Survivor groups to agree a plan to identify the locations of all disappeared children’s remains and provide for dignified burial and memorialisation.”
The Special Advocate supports calls for the Government to move to a Compulsory Purchase Order for the Bessborough site. The Special Advocate for Survivors calls for the immediate halt of any developments at Bessborough, and a programme of works to begin without any further delay to identify burial grounds of all those children and women buried on the institution’s lands.
Of the 923 children who died in Bessborough, the burial records of only 64 of these children have been identified and located – this is an absolute disgrace.
The burial grounds at Bessborough have still not been identified, and with so many deceased children missing burial records, this can only be described as ‘manifestly inappropriate’.
The ongoing failure by the State to locate, identify and properly memorialise the burial site of children who died in Bessborough and other Mother and Baby institutions, is unacceptable.
This situation at Bessborough, and at other Mother and Baby Institutions across Ireland with unmarked graves, are causing immense pain and trauma to Survivors, Affected Persons and the family members of the deceased babies and children.
Dignified burial, the location of burial grounds and dignified memorialisation is one of the most frequently raised issues raised with the Special Advocate.
The differing levels of treatment concerning the identification, preservation and memorialisation of human remains across Mother and Baby Institutions across Ireland, has created an unfair Hierarchy of Abuse and Responses to Abuse for Survivors and their families.
A Human Rights approach to the Bessborough Mother and Baby Institution demands full State accountability for the deaths of over 900 babies and children, and action to ascertain the whereabouts of the disappeared and ensure dignified burial and memorialisation.
The Special Advocate also calls for the unsealing and release of all reports and documents in the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation Archive relating to the investigations on possible locations of human remains and all those disappeared at Bessborough, and any other institution, by Emergency Legislation if necessary.
The Special Advocate recognises the decades of dedicated work by Survivors and Affected Persons, and Survivor Groups, on the need to identify, protect and properly memorialise the remains of the babies and children and adults disappeared across all institutions. Over 9,000 babies and infants died in Mother and baby Institutions between 1922-1998.
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FMR and Clann Project Statement on Bessborough Planning Permission
9 July 2026
We are horrified that An Coimisiún Pleanála has now granted planning permission for a private apartment development at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Bessborough, even though 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough remain missing. Their burial places are not known and the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation concluded: ‘it is highly likely that burials did take place in the grounds of Bessborough’.
We call on the Government immediately to CPO the site, as requested in a unanimous motion of Cork City Councillors. In the 1970s the State bought 140 acres of the original 200-acre Bessborough estate through compulsory purchase. Today that land contains several industrial/retail parks and part of the N40 road. Many bereaved families are now seeking the compulsory purchase of the remaining 60 acres at Bessborough which are the subject of the planning permission, so that a public park can be created in memory of their disappeared relatives.
These 878 women and children are part of the nation’s disappeared, abandoned in the past and disrespected and actively ignored in the present. Today’s State appears to have washed its hands of Bessborough’s 878 missing children and women, and their many living mothers and other relatives. It is compounding the enormous injustices of the past and perpetuating a situation of mass enforced disappearance.
We demand that the Government immediately unseal all records concerning burials from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation archive, by emergency legislation if necessary.
Records, testimony and analyses gathered by the Commission on the questions of death and burial at Bessborough remain sealed in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality. Unlike for Tuam and Sean Ross Abbey, the Commission did not publish its archaeological assessment of the grounds at Bessborough.
There is also no time to waste in pursuing the effective investigations into deaths and disappearances that should have happened many decades ago, and that families are still requesting. We call on the Attorney General to order an inquest into the deaths of children and women who were confined in Bessborough, as he has the power to do under section 24 of the Coroners Act 1962.
In 2021, eight independent United Nations Human Rights bodies, including the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, wrote to the Irish Government to emphasise its obligations under European and international law to investigate the deaths of children and mothers who were institutionalised, and to ascertain the whereabouts of the disappeared and return their remains to relatives. The UN bodies asked for information about the Government’s plans for inquests.
The Government must intervene to put an end to this appalling, ongoing injustice.
Please note:
- Our written submissions to An Coimisiún Pleanála in March 2026 are here.
- On 17 April 2026, the Clann Project further submitted to An Coimisiún Pleanála an Observation containing 156 collated Observations, all in support of the appeal by Bessboro Mother and Baby Home Support Group against the grant by Cork City Council to Estuary View Enterprises 2020 Limited on 24th February 2026 of Conditional Permission for a Large-Scale Residential Development at a site located at Bessborough, Ballinure, Blackrock, Cork. The majority of the 156 Observations were from people directly affected by forced family separation and institutionalisation, many of whom have a direct link to Bessborough Mother and Baby Institution. All Observations are on the public file in An Coimisiún Pleanála.
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