Children's Minister Roderic O’Gorman has lodged a submission on plans to build apartments on the site of a notorious former Mother and Baby Home.
The Green Party TD has warned against disturbing the children’s burial ground at Bessborough, Cork, where 900 infants are believed to be interred in unmarked graves.
More than 20 objections have been lodged against the proposal by MWB Two Ltd with a decision due from Cork City Council next Tuesday.
Survivors, politicians and neighbouring residents have voiced concerns over any disturbance of the burial site, which they want preserved.
In his submission, Mr O’Gorman told how he had been approached by survivors about the plans, which were lodged before the Mother and Baby Homes Report was published.
He said: “I understand the distress the timing of this proposal has caused... and I share their concerns in relation to the risks associated with this development.”
The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Inquiry published its long-awaited report earlier this month revealing more than 9,000 babies died in the institutions.
In its fifth interim report it said it found it “very difficult to understand that no member of the congregation was able to say where the children who died in Bessborough are buried”.
Its damning final report outlined how a man who had lived nearby “pointed out the area in the grounds where he believes he saw a graveyard marked with white crosses”.
Another sworn affadavit from a man who had played in the grounds as a child described “an area where he said he had seen open graves with the bodies of young children exposed”.
Mr O’Gorman added he made a submission “to request the council to take account of the findings of the Commission”.
He asked that the children’s burial ground be “memorialised”.
Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns said the “human rights abuses and violence” associated with the site meant it should be treated as a “commemorative and traumatic landscape”.
The Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance has said it will take High Court action in its bid to halt the development if necessary.
