In 2012, local Galway historian Catherine Corless published a chilling finding. A septic tank on the site of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in the Irish town of Tuam, she concluded, was likely to be the location of a mass grave. A subsequent state investigation vindicated her research, as it emerged that the remains of premature babies and children up to the age of three were buried on the site.

The now-defunct Tuam home, operated by the Bon Secours order of nuns, is one of eighteen institutions under investigation by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission. The commission was tasked with uncovering the practices of Church-run homes for unmarried, pregnant women. For decades, during which the Catholic Church wielded a near-theocratic level of influence in Ireland, women were shamed into giving birth in secret.

Children born in these institutions frequently ended up in foster homes or moved to industrial schools. Others were shipped off for adoption at a profit. Alongside the notorious Magdalene Laundries, these places formed a morbid architecture of institutions where women and children were abused under the cover of darkness.

The Irish public has taken several steps towards the dismantling of the country’s old Catholic establishment, as well as its deep entrenchment within the state. Same-sex marriage was legalised in 2015, the same year that the Mother and Baby Homes Commission was formed, and a repeal of the constitutional ban on abortion followed in 2018.

But while the electorate could resolve these legal injustices through a public vote, the Mother and Baby Homes are part of a horror story that can only really end with the truth. There is much yet to be uncovered about what really happened in these institutions, and to what extent the state and wider Church apparatus was complicit.

After five years, and lengthy delays, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission will deliver its final report on Friday, October 30th. But what ought to be a moment of relief for survivors and campaigners has instead seen the government forced to defend accusations of a cover-up.

Last week, the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green Party coalition government passed legislation governing the handling of the commission’s report. Known as the Mother and Baby Homes bill, the law has enraged survivors’ groups and the wider public. This is because the government has failed to address their fears that a significant chunk of the data could be sealed in an archive for decades.

Campaigners and opposition TDs demanded that the bill be amended to ensure this couldn’t happen. But Green Party Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said the government would refuse to accept any opposition amendments. This came in the face of protests from survivors’ groups outside the Dáil on the night of the vote.

The commission was established under a 2004 law which stipulates that the records provided to the government should be sealed for 30 years. The government has claimed the Mother and Baby Homes bill will allow survivors born in the home to access valuable records, rather than conceal them.

Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, who has so often given the impression that he finds the public to be the most inconvenient aspect of political life, claimed that those opposed to the bill had gotten the “wrong message.” But this is a failure to engage with the arguments that survivors have put to the government.

The new law allows for a database, which can help people born in the homes to trace their heritage, to be transferred to Ireland’s child protection agency. This means the data will avoid being sealed for 30 years under the 2004 provisions. It is on this basis that the government argues that people have merely misunderstood the law.

But this ignores the fact that a significant portion of records collected by the commission are not included in this database. The remaining files, which could include administrative records and details of abuse, will still be subject to the thirty year seal.

Campaigner and lecturer Dr. Maeve O’Rourke, along with other legal experts, have argued that the EU’s GDPR policy means the 2004 seal requirements need not even apply here. This is the view of Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, undermining O’Gorman’s position that the government is simply acting on the advice of the attorney-general.

This is, rather, a political decision — the latest in a long history of secrecy and cover-ups surrounding the abuse inflicted on women and children throughout Irish history. The Mother and Baby Homes left wounds which can only heal when there is full accountability and transparency.

But the Irish state has no institutional memory of engaging with survivors and uncovering historic wrongdoing. It has historically been geared towards concealing the truth and protecting the powerful. That is why it has taken so long to even get to this point, 60 years after the Tuam home closed its doors.

We have little reason to expect any different from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two parties which often ruled in an informal coalition with the Church since the foundation of the state. But special ire should be reserved for the role of the Green Party.

When the Greens agreed to join the government earlier this year, it was assumed that the government’s broad economic policy would be dictated by the historic Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael duopoly. Yet those Green members who accepted the coalition deal probably did not expect to be the face of a murky cover-up scandal involving Ireland’s relationship with the Church.

The Irish Examiner has reported that the Greens have shed members over the past week, quoting a party source as saying: “this is the worst it’s ever been — and I’ve said that a lot this year.”

Based on all evidence, including their disastrous foray into coalition with Fianna Fáil in 2007, the Greens will emerge from this government with nothing to show for it. They will likely lose councillors and TDs, but most importantly, their activist and voting base will disappear. It was all predictable – and, indeed, predicted.

This will be the price for the insult done to the survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes. Because, for all of the wrongs committed during the reign of Ireland’s Catholic establishment, few could argue with the fact that these institutions were among the most barbaric.

The mass grave in Tuam will be remembered as one of most shameful episodes in the country’s history since independence. The same Catholic establishment would later preach on the sanctity of life during the 2018 abortion referendum. But while its power is ever-diminishing, the religious orders seemingly have no shortage of politicians willing to conceal their sins.