Thread by @Donal_OKeeffe

Anna Corrigan is laying into Minister Zappone.

Anna tells Zappone this is not a matter for her department. This is a matter for Justice.

This is about illegal adoption, Anna Corrigan says.

I have two brothers missing, says Anna.

Anna Corrigan to Minister Zappone: “This is a spider web and it spreads out all over Ireland and you Minister are terrified of it. Tuam is only a microcosm. If we get Tuam right, everything else follows.” #Tuambabies

JP Rogers: “Minister, you are being very badly advised. What special legislation was brought in to exhume the bodies in the Magdalene Laundry in Galway, in Dublin?”

Adrienne Corless: “if there was a motorway being dug there, there would be no legal problem to excavate.”

Tom Ward: “We are the people who were born in that bloody goddamn home. We want everyone of them babies taken out of there and buried daycent.”

Izzy Kamikaze is describing the Victorian sewage system of cesspits in Tuam. She says a much greater area of ground needs to be excavated than has been sampled.

Incredible contribution from @IzzyKamikaze. Hairs on the back of the neck. A passionate voice for justice. Massive applause.

Mary Moriarty is describing the scene she saw when she fell into the Tuam cesspit in the 1970s. Rows and rows of little bodies wrapped in cloth. “I could not believe that religious people could do something like that.”

Mary Moriarty: “When I was given my newborn son, he was wrapped in the same clothes I saw those babies wrapped in. I swear on my oath what I saw. They should be dug up and given to their relatives.”

Elderly resident says DNA analysis would take 20 years and “experts” say the babies can’t be identified. Angry response from the floor.

Resident says she doesn’t see why anyone had the right to deny the human rights of the relatives and the #tuambabies.

Katherine Zappone does not look happy. Overwhelming reaction from Tuam people in audience is that they want excavation and DNA analysis.

I asked the Minister if a body was found in my garden, would the Guards ask how I felt about their investigating it, or would we just say an old Mass instead. She answered me in what I could only describe as complete and utter waffle.

Katherine Zappone says she is pleased that some people who do not share the majority view were heard.

As far as I’m aware, of a gathering of maybe 200 people, the vast majority of them Tuam residents, only two spoke against exhumation of the #tuambabies.

If the purpose of tonight’s meeting was to create a false equivalence between those who want exhumation and DNA analysis in Tuam and those who favour saying a Mass and covering up the #TuamBabies story, it backfired spectacularly on @KZapponeTD and/or her advisors.

Out of nearly 200 people at tonight’s meeting, only two speakers said they oppose exhumation. It is very clear now that the vast, vast majority of people in Tuam are as saddened and horrified as we all are at the thought of denying justice to the #TuamBabies and their relatives.