In Ireland, 9.000 children died in the former homes of single mothers

A commission in Ireland investigating a scandal in former homes for single mothers said today that 9.000 children died in the institutions, which were run by Catholic nuns for decades.

Prime Minister Michael Martin said that he would issue a "public apology" to the Irish state over the affair, in which the level of mortality in those institutions, which were open until 1998, was alarming.

These homes, run by nuns, received girls and young women who had been rejected by their families. Those institutions were considered illegitimate, and it often happened that mothers were separated from children who were given up for adoption.

The commission, which published the report, was tasked with investigating the high level of child mortality in these former institutions between 1922 and 1998.

The commission's report described a "dark and shameful chapter in Ireland's recent history," the prime minister said, adding that for decades Ireland had a culture of misogyny.

Martin singled out "serious and systematic discrimination against women, especially those who had children out of wedlock."

The investigation was opened back in 2015 when historian Katherine Corless said that about 800 children in one such institution died and were buried in a common grave between 1925 and 1961.