President Michael D Higgins has welcomed the imminent start of the excavation of the site of the former mother and baby institution in Tuam, and is open to visiting the site.
Minister for Children Norma Foley visited the site last week and met members of the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention Tuam (ODAIT), including director Daniel MacSweeney.
A spokesperson said Ms Foley is “happy to engage with the representative groups or families as appropriate”.
Mr Higgins is “open to visiting the site in Tuam at an appropriate time”, a spokesman said.
The Tuam Babies Family Group, which is led by relatives of people believed to be buried at the site, have urged senior political figures to meet them and visit the area.
Pre-excavation work to seal the site and get the ground ready has been under way in recent weeks. The excavation process will begin on Monday.
Mr Higgins “welcomes the excavation beginning, as well as the DNA which has been provided by a number of people, as important steps in this journey”, a spokesman said.
The President “hopes that the process will lead to an appropriate level of dignity being given to those who died and to their families”.
The excavation will begin some 11 years after research by local historian Catherine Corless revealed that 796 children died at the institution, which was run by the Bon Secours religious order from 1925 to 1961.
A test excavation carried out in 2016 and 2017 discovered a significant amount of human remains in what appeared to be a disused sewage chamber.
Mr MacSweeney said the process of recovering and identifying remains would be “complex”.
Speaking at a press conference in Tuam on Monday, he said about 80 people had come forward so far to give their DNA in a bid to identify any remains recovered.
“We cannot underestimate the complexity of the task before us, the challenging nature of the site, as you will see, the age of the remains, the location of the burials,” he said.
Anna Corrigan, a member of the Tuam Babies Family Group who believes her two brothers John and William Dolan might be buried at the site, said the fact the excavation was finally happening was “bittersweet”.
Speaking at the site last Monday, she said the children buried there had been “crying for a long time to be found”.
“This is the start of something. We may not get all the answers, we don’t know, but it’s the next stage.”
