Not only does the author do a hatchet job on the ABC, he simultaneously does a snow job on the Roman "Catholic" church.

Bruce and Julian

I think you need to stick to the facts and to the subject under discussion. My article covered three main topics only. The "septic tank" hoax, the Four Corners programme and to a lesser extent the movie "Philomena". I made no comment on Magdalene laundries or on anecdotal "horror" stories, nor did I set out to write a new historical narrative on mother and baby homes.

In regard to the three main topics I covered, all I have argued is that (based on the evidence cited) these media stories were greatly exaggerated and widely duped the public. Pointing out factual inaccuracies or gross imbalances in a widely-disseminated narrative is not the same as a whitewash. If nobody is ever critical of poor journalism then standards will never be raised.

Just because I am critical of the media stories referred to does not mean that I disbelieve all the negative stories about mother and baby homes.

I suspect that some people (because of my very Irish name) stereotype me as a conservative Catholic of Irish background. I did indeed grow up in Ireland but I am agnostic and more of a critic than an apologist for the Catholic Church. Whatever our religious views, we still need to be fair-minded and base our opinions on evidence rather than prejudice.

It would be nice to get a truly balanced picture of the era referred to. The reality is that the main survivors are the adopted children and to a much lesser extent some of the relinquishing mothers. The nuns that ran these homes are at least a generation older. They are nearly all dead and their accounts will never be heard

Bren’s tirade against the ABC and SMH remains, despite his disclaimer, no less a hatchet job backed by a snow job on the Roman Church. The warning of deceptive journalism shows early on: “The story was exposed as ‘b*’ ” . A writer telling the truth would use the word ‘described’, not ‘exposed’. Piecing together what facts can be gleaned from the author’s polemic, hundreds of babies died as a result of the church’s neglect and general ill-treatment between 1925 and 1961 of mothers and children in just one of the church’s “homes” for unmarried mothers. Recent research by historian Catherine Corliss showed there were no burial records to match the death certificates, and she concluded that the nuns had “disposed of” the bodies. Irish society at the time was, in Bren’s words, “deeply conservative” (in my words, “rabidly superstitious”) which formed the cultural background for the vile treatment of its hapless mother and child victims by the Roman church which called the shots.

All that Brad could come up with to support his intemperate attack on the ABC and SMH was that the dead children MAY not (the caution is based on the Irish Times report he cited) have been buried in a septic tank, that the makers of a movie based on another victim of the Roman “Catholic” mother and child homes, Philomena, had over-dramatised the story, and that most of these homes were not Irish-based (so?). If the ABC and SMH were supposed to retract any mis-statements, it is hard to find what there is to retract.

As Brad reports, there’s to be an inquiry into the mistreatment of unmarried mothers and their children. Let’s hope it’s more transparent than the British inquiries into the Bloody Sunday murders, the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, the tissue of lies about Iraqi WMDs and the “suiciding” of Dr David Kelly who didn’t keep his mouth tight enough shut. The Irish could take a leaf from Australia’s book to conduct genuinely searching inquiries into mistreatment of institutionalised children.

Sorry, I twice referred to Bren as Brad. Lucky I wasn't writing for the ABC ! Btw I wouldn't have mistaken his Irish-based surname as signalling religion. Can't generalise and in any event the Irish have wised up a long way since 1961.

Emperor Julian
The description of the "dead babies in the septic tank" story as" BS" was not mine. It was the ABC's Paul Barry's. If you have an issue with his choice of words take it up with him. Few across the world, apart from some Irish media and Paul Barry made any attempt to correct the grossly false public record about this story and that is a scandal.
The evidence suggests that the convent had its own burial ground and deceased babies were buried there. There is nothing sinister about this. Unmarked paupers' graves existed in that era (including in Australia) but they are not the same as a mass grave. The home probably kept records but as it closed 50 years ago these could have been lost.
I note the comment that " The Irish could take a leaf from Australia’s book to conduct genuinely searching inquiries into mistreatment of institutionalised children". The reverse is in fact the case. The (Australian) Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is modelled on an Irish inquiry by Justice Yvonne Murphy into child abuse in the Dublin diocese of the Catholic Church.

I suggest people check out Harts Island in New York, where approximately 400,000 babies, children and still borns were buried in mass unmarked graves between approximately 1911 and the early 1970s (when welfare for unmarried mothers was finally introduced). Most of them would have died from much the same social conditions as the Irish 'septic tank' babies - poverty, abuse, poor medical care, lack of birth control, and the widely held belief that unmarried mothers and their offspring were 'sinful'.

There is a Harts Island equivalent in virtually every Western country.

Emperor Julian

'The Irish could take a leaf from Australia’s book to conduct genuinely searching inquiries into mistreatment of institutionalised children.'

Well, I live in Ireland for part of each year and I can assure you that genuinely searching inquiries into past mistreatment of institutionalised children (as well as every other kind of past and present sin committed by the Catholic Church) are being held ad nauseum. In fact, all the mea culpa obsession in the Irish media is getting almost ridiculous.

Yet, the issue that is really crying out for a 'genuinely searching inquiry' is the British dirty war in Ireland and Northern Ireland, which the Irish government, Irish media and Irish society in general prefer to politely ignore. The Catholic Church is a much easier target.