Permission has been granted for the development of 106 apartments at the site of the Mother and Baby institution in Bessborough, Co Cork.<\/p>\n
The decision comes following an appeal to An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la.<\/p>\n
Plans to develop the site have faced years of opposition from campaigners and survivors.<\/p>\n
The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes estimated that 900 babies died at the site.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, developer Estuary View Enterprises was granted planning permission by Cork City Council to build apartments at the site.<\/p>\n
Bessborough Mother and Baby Home Support Group and Cllr Peter Horgan of Labour lodged appeals with An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la.<\/p>\n
Today’s decision has been described by survivors and advocates as very disappointing.<\/p>\n
The Bessborough Mother and Baby institution operated from 1922 until 1998\/99 under the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.<\/p>\n
Thousands of women and children passed through the institution over those decades.<\/p>\n
While the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes concluded that over 900 children died, only a small number of burial locations have been conclusively identified, leaving the whereabouts of many children’s remains unknown.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The Labour Party said there is still time for Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il “to right this wrong”.<\/p>\n
In a statement, it said a Compulsory Purchase Order of the site is possible.<\/p>\n
It has urged the Government “to act without delay to ensure that the Bessborough site is recognised and preserved as a site of conscience”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Permission has been granted for the development of 106 apartments at the site of the Mother and Baby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-540847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}