I apologize for the profound generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their Children who ended up in a mother and baby home or a county home.

As the commission says plainly, they should not have bean there.

The Irish state, as the main funding authority for the majority of these institutions, had the ultimate ability to exert control over these institutions.

The state failed you, the mothers and Children in these homes.

I apologize for this shame and stigma which they were subjected to on which, for some, remains a Borden.

To this day in apologizing, I want to emphasize that each of you were in an institution because of the rounds of others.

Each of you is blameless.

Each of you did nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed off.