The former minister for children Katherine Zappone has called for a pause to a plan to build apartments on the site of the former mother and baby home in Bessborough in Co Cork.
Ms Zappone said that there still needs to be a search carried out at Bessborough to see if there are skeletal remains there.
Plans to develop the site have faced years of opposition from campaigners and survivors.
The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes estimated that 900 babies died at the site.
Earlier this month, permission was granted for the development of 106 apartments at the site.
Ms Zappone, while minister for children, held responsibility for the oversight of the Mother and Baby Home Commission (2016-2020).
She said that her concerns regarding the matter originate from her time as minister, adding that she wished she had had more time as minister at the time to have received the final report.
That report identified that there were modest efforts to ascertain the location and scale of the burial at Bessborough, but she said that was not sufficient, and that is still her view.
Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week programme, Ms Zappone said: “I think this can and should be done now before development… I think there should be a pause now in relation to the development.”
The Commission of Investigation estimated that 900 babies died at Bessborough
“The careful, honest and moral thing to do is to look properly before we build.
“Why would the State not want to do something about this? We know 859 and 19 mothers died as Bessborough and they have no known grave,” said Ms Zappone.
The Bessborough Mother and Baby institution operated from 1922 until 1998/99 under the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Thousands of women and children passed through the institution over those decades.
While the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes concluded that over 900 children died at the home, only a small number of burial locations have been conclusively identified, leaving the whereabouts of many children’s remains unknown.
Survivors’ groups and campaigners have argued that parts of the land may contain undocumented burials and that any development could permanently disturb evidence before all investigations are complete.
Ms Zappone said that the site investigation of the mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway, has a template that can be used in other places now, saying there has to be a survey to determine whether or not there are remains within the 60 acres of Bessborough to move forward.
“We need a similar first step as was done in Tuam – to have a similar approach to Bessborough as we did in Tuam, it needs to be taken one step at a time and to determine how to do that.”
As to whether a full scale investigation like Tuam is needed now, she said it would have to be up to a consultation between the Government and survivors and families.
She said that personally, she would have been always very keen to have survivors at the centre of an approach to the way that the State responds to the abuses that happened to women and children in the institutions.
“The primary concerns, as I hear it, and as our Special Advocate Patricia Carey talks about, they (the victims and survivors) have the right to know where their loved ones are buried and that’s what I am arguing for.”
She added that she would have taken the same approach at the time as minister as she is doing now, knowing there are unknown burial locations.
“I think they could be known,” Ms Zappone said.
She added that she would support a compulsory purchase order of the site if it was in full consultation with the survivors.
Earlier this month, the Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government will reflect on the planning permission granted to build apartments on the Bessborough site.
The Coalition has faced cross-party calls from Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party and People Before Profit to bring the site into public ownership and to stop any construction on the site.