Experts prepare to start formal excavation at site of Tuam Mother and Baby Home
Those overseeing the process say they hope it will add "depth and detail" to questions that persist around burial practices at the home over a 36-year period.
Forensic anthropologists and archaeologists from Columbia, Spain, the UK, Australia and the United States have joined Irish counterparts in recent weeks to take part in the process.
They have been participating in pre-excavation briefings over the last fortnight, before ground is broken at the site in the Dublin Road estate next week.
It is expected to take at least two years to complete the dig.
A media briefing to provide an update on the work is being held this morning. It has attracted a large number of local, national and international news outlets.
The Director of the Office for Authorised Intervention in Tuam (ODAIT), Daniel MacSweeney, has again emphasised the importance of ensuring that survivors and relatives of those who lived and died in the Tuam Home are at the centre of the process.
They will take part in a private visit to the location where the works will take place tomorrow.
Mr MacSweeney said the first objective was to recover all of the human remains from the site and to re-bury them with dignity. Where possible, the remains will be identified and returned to their families.
He said the complexity of the task could not be underestimated, given the size and nature of the site in question.
Dr Niamh McCullagh, the Senior Forensic Consultant who will oversee the excavation and exhumation process, said the random nature in which remains were buried added to that difficulty.
She already carried out preliminary excavations at the site in 2016 and 2017, which revealed the presence of 20 individual chambers two metres below ground. Each contained co-mingled (mixed) skeletal remains of children, aged between 35 foetal weeks and around three years of age.
Dr McCullagh said that while radio carbon dating on some bones places their time of living between 1925 and 1961, they have lost their "skeletal order", further complicating the process. For this reason, the skeletal identification is one of the most significant challenges.
DNA samples have already been collected from a small number of relatives and this process will be expanded in the coming months to gather as much genetic evidence as possible.
The Bon Secours Sisters, which operated the Home for Galway County Council, has provided the ODAIT with its archive. This will be cross referenced with other records available as the process continues.
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