A statue of Mary in a grotto at the Seán Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary, which was a mother and baby home from 1930 to 1970. Photograph: Niall Carson/PAThe records from mother and baby homes, where more than 100,000 Irish women and children stayed between 1922 and 1998, are being held in a database which is “not fit for purpose” and which is not designed for the long-term preservation of the important documents. Mother and baby homes were religious institutions where women who had children outside of marriage were sent by their families, local authorities or the Catholic Church. The mother and baby home records were originally collected by the commission of investigation into what happened to women and children in mother and baby homes. She added that the system holding adoption records, which was set up by the Health Service Executive before 2014, was also in need of review.
