A call for a State inquiry into the unregistered deaths of women whose remains were removed from a Magdalen Laundry graveyard and re-interred 10 years ago, has been made by an Irish adoption society.
Mr Anton Sweeney of Adoption Ireland and the Adopted People's Association said they were calling for the full disclosure, names and identities of all those who died in the Magdalen Laundries run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.
"The women involved were not guilty of anything, yet the whole of their lives were taken away from them," he said.
"It was one thing where women whose babies were placed for adoption and their mothers then left the Magdalens. They could be found or at least their graves could be visited and their families knew who they were.
"In this case, we literally don't know who is in the ground. Questions have to be asked about the circumstances of their deaths. There should be a State inquiry," Mr Sweeney said.
When the remains of 133 women were being removed from the plot on the land at High Park, Drumcondra, in 1993, an additional 22 bodies were found. Death certificates existed for only 75 of the original 133 women.
Ms Patricia McDonnell of the Magdalen Memorial Committee said she wanted to know by what law the religious kept these women, some of whom were orphans.
Two members of the original Magdalen Memorial Committee, Ms Margo Kelly and Ms Blathnaid Ní Chinnéide, who contacted The Irish Times yesterday, said they disagreed with the statement of Sister Ann Marie Ryan that the bodies of the women were respectfully cremated and laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery at a public ceremony.
They said the ashes of these women were re-interred at dawn, with no notification to relatives, the committee or the public. They said they arrived as the double grave was being filled in.
"There was certainly no-one else there by the time we arrived, to watch and pray as clay covered the urns labelled 'Magdalen of the Sorrows', 'Magdalen Unknown', 'Magdalen Number ---' and such-like," the two committee members said.
"What happened to those women was wrong in life and in death," Ms Kelly and Ms Ní Chinnéide said.
Labour TD, Ms Joan Burton, called on the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to look into the whole matter of the deaths.
"I would think this was an area where the Minister for Justice would feel obliged to inquire properly into," she said.
Attempts to contact Sister Ryan or any member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity last night for a comment were unsuccessful.
In a previous statement, Sister Ryan said the exhumation and re-interring of the bodies of the 155 women "was approved by all the relevant authorities and we have had no queries from families about our decision in the intervening time.
"One family took the remains of a deceased relative to a family plot at the time.
"The remaining 154 were respectfully cremated and laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery and at a public ceremony."