Each year, my Department issues tens of thousands of visas on foot of work permits granted by the Department of enterprise. We are a very open economy. We welcome in migrant workers. In fact, if the Deputy looks at the Irish workforce, we have a significant number of workers who come from overseas. We have had a very positive experience with migrants who have come to Ireland to work. We have done a really good job in integrating them, notwithstanding the fact that there are people out there who want to politicise it, polarise it and create violence between different groups in our society.

I believe the Government has done a very effective job in respect of it. However, it is important to ensure there is a rules-based system and the humanity and compassion Deputy Bacik referred to is very much built into the statutory regime we have here, whether it is International Protection Bill or the rules that operate in respect of work visas. We have been very welcoming to people who have come to this country. We are an open economy. We welcome them in but we must have a rules-based system as well.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Cheann Comhairle. In 1940 Ireland's infant mortality rate was 6.5%. In the Bessborough mother and baby home, it was 61%. In 1943 a Department inspector, Alice Litster, said: "The greater number[s] ... were miserable scraps of humanity, wizened, some emaciated and almost all had rash and sores all over their bodies, faces, hands and heads." Many of those children died of starvation. The State was fully aware but the institution remained open and women and children continued to be incarcerated and abused there.

Between 1922 when it opened and 1998 when it finally closed 923 children died in Bessborough but burial records exist for just 64. It seems no one even cared enough to record where they were buried. The nuns who ran Bessborough did keep meticulous records about one thing: baptisms. A few years ago when it was suggested some of the children had not been baptised, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was quick to correct the record. They wanted to " ... state categorically that all children born in Bessborough were baptised within the rites of the Catholic Church and canon law." However, when it comes to the burial records of babies who died there, they apparently have no idea where they are. They disappeared without a trace as if they never existed.

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was "perplexed and concerned at the inability of ... the Congregation ... to identify the burial ... [places]." and concluded it was "... highly likely that the burials did take place in the grounds ...". Twenty-eight years since the Bessborough mother and baby home closed we still do not know where they are because the State has not bothered to look.

Unbelievably, planning permission has now been granted to build an apartment complex on the grounds of Bessborough. Can the Minister imagine how empty the apology to mother and baby home survivors must feel when five years later planning permission has somehow been granted to build apartments on a mass grave? I do not think the Minister needs me to tell him that ordinarily if there were any number of children buried somewhere there would be a criminal investigation. There would never be a question of just concreting over it.

Thank you, Deputy.

It is not just callous, it is abhorrent and it should never be allowed to happen.

The Minister to respond.

Survivors will be protesting outside the Dáil this evening. They want the Government to act before it is too late to acquire the grounds and conduct a long-overdue-----

Thank you, Deputy. The Minister to respond.

----- forensic investigation. What does the Minister have to say to them?

I thank Deputy Cairns for her question. Obviously, it evokes a very painful and disturbing part of our history. In fairness to this Government and indeed previous Governments, there has been a process of trying to ensure that women who are survivors of mother and baby homes and, indeed, children who were born there are provided with recompense and acknowledgement by the State over the past ten-to-15 years or so. Nothing is ever enough for the pain that people went through, particularly the pain of mothers having children taken from them at a very young age.

Deputy Cairns referred to the commission of investigation report into mother and baby homes and it, as she knows, carried out a cartographic and landscape assessment of possible unrecorded burial arrangements in Bessborough. It also carried out a site survey and consulted with people on responses to its appeal seeking information about burials there.

It concluded that it was likely that some of the children who died at Bessborough were buried in the grounds, but it was unable to find any physical or documentary evidence of this. As no evidence of locations was found, the commission did not consider it feasible to excavate the full available site, which amounts to 60 acres, or the former 200-acre estate, parts of which have now been built on.

I empathise and acknowledge the pain that survivors from Bessborough feel at the news that the site is to be developed in a way they feel does not give recognition to the terrible actions that went on there previously. Planning permission has been granted. The Deputy knows as well as I do that the Government cannot interfere in respect of planning applications. I do not know whether an appeal has been lodged, but if it has not, that is an avenue available to the survivors.

With regard to other available avenues, the Deputy asked for the State to purchase the site. Unless there is specific, strong cartographic evidence as to where bodies are buried, we could find ourselves buying a vast site for the purpose of carrying out excavations that could take an interminable period of time. We know what is happening in Tuam at present, which is a small location. I had the honour of being there and seeing the size of that location previously. If we were to buy a site the size of Bessborough and start excavations, I would be extremely concerned at the length of time that would take. Ultimately, I do not think it would provide the type of support and appropriate response that all of us in this House want to provide to survivors. I will raise and talk to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste in respect of it. I understand the concern but purchasing the site is not the answer.

It is incorrect to say that there is not specific or strong enough evidence. The commission saying that it is likely that there are remains of children on the grounds is specific and strong enough evidence to prove that there probably is. At the very least, it warrants an examination.

There seems to be a perception that this is a normal planning application, that there is no sensitivity and that there is no criminal aspect to the situation. The Government is treating it like that, claiming it cannot do anything now that planning permission has been granted. If a child were to disappear today and it was suspected that they were buried in a particular plot of land, it is safe to say there would be a forensic examination and, following that, the coroner would be called. All of the criminal and legal processes would follow, and rightly so because the family of that child would deserve justice. Why do the families of the 829 unaccounted for and disappeared children not deserve that whereas the families of the children in Tuam do?

We want to be honest with people. We do not want to mislead the 829 families into believing that, by purchasing the site, we will be able to excavate and identify burial grounds. We need to be honest with people in this regard.

Just so the House is aware, on foot of the Government’s action plan for survivors and former residents of mother and baby homes, the former Minister for housing, Deputy O’Brien, wrote to local authorities requesting that development plan processes consider incorporating appropriate measures to ensure the protection of unrecorded burial sites. That is an issue that must be dealt with by the local authority in whose area Bessborough is placed. The action plan also contains commitments in relation to dignified, local memorialisation of known or agreed burial sites.

There is no point in purchasing the land and old home unless there is a realistic prospect of being able to identify burial grounds within them. Otherwise, we are just prolonging the suffering and pain of individuals who were in Bessborough.