Preliminary works to enable the excavation of the former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway, are due to begin today.
The initial works on the long-awaited dig, RTÉ reports, will take four weeks before the full-scale excavation gets under way.
It is the latest step in the ongoing effort to identify the remains of infants who died at the home between 1925 and 1961.
The site, in the Dublin Road estate in Tuam, will be cordoned off and placed under forensic control over the next four weeks.
This will entail the installation of a 2.4 metre high hoarding around the perimeter of the land in question, as well as the installation of a number of facilities required to commence the formal excavation process.
The start of the operation to limit access to the location follows detailed preparatory surveys there in recent months. That has involved the use of ground penetrating radar, along with soil sampling and topographical analysis.
In 2017, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes determined that “significant quantities of human remains” were buried in and around a former sewage facility at the home, after research by local historian Catherine Corless first brought the issue to global attention in 2014.
It revealed there were no burial records for 796 babies and young children who died there during the 36 years it operated.
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