Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has urged the Taoiseach to ensure funding is included in Budget 2027 to buy the lands attached to the former Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.
Planning permission has been granted for more than 100 apartments on the site, despite appeals from survivors. An Coimisiún Pleanála made its final decision earlier this month, reducing the overall number of units but allowing the development to proceed.
Survivor groups have strongly opposed the plans, arguing that the remains of hundreds of children may still be buried there and that the site has never been properly investigated. McDonald visited the site yesterday to meet members of the Save Bessboro campaign and discuss their concerns.
She said she has written to Taoiseach Micheál Martin asking that the money needed to purchase the Bessboro site be provided in the October budget. She welcomed the Taoiseach’s recent request for Cork City Council to engage with the landowners, but said the government must take a more direct role and make the funding available.
McDonald added that she expects the Taoiseach to meet survivors this week and said he should tell them clearly that the State will provide the money to buy the site.
The call comes after Cork City Council unanimously backed a motion urging the State to engage with the owners and negotiate a purchase. Any deal would likely be expensive, given the site’s location in a rapidly growing suburb and the fact that planning permission has already been secured for a major development.
If the site is purchased, survivors want it fully investigated and preserved as a site of national conscience, with a memorial park also proposed. McDonald said the burial place of more than 800 children remains unknown and described the land as sacred ground that should be urgently protected.