A truth and reconciliation forum in Dublin has heard emotional accounts from parents of the effects on them and their families of the unauthorised removal of their deceased children's organs.
The forum, established independently by the Parents for Justice campaign group and held in Dublin Castle, also heard yesterday strong criticism of hospital staff for their treatment of the families whose children's organs had been taken without permission.
Parents for Justice claims it was forced to organise the forum because two private State inquiries had failed to satisfy the needs of the families to have their experiences heard and acknowledged publicly. Further forums are planned around the country.
Patricia Buggle, the mother of Adam, a stillborn boy in 1990, described her struggle to find out which of his organs had been taken after it was revealed his entire body had not been buried.
She related her guilt at having to conceal the truth from her three surviving children and of her nightmares of a little boy being laid on a cold slab and a person cutting into his "perfect little body".
Despite having been given a list, over the phone, of what organs had been released to her for her son's second burial in 2000, she was later told by the hospital that this list did not include all the removed organs, she said.
She said she had lost all confidence in the ability of the hospital to tell her the truth about which parts of Adam had been returned.
Ms Buggle stressed that neither she nor her husband had ever agreed to anything other than a postmortem to establish what caused her son's death.
"I understood my son would be opened, examined and fully closed at the time of death. It was never suggested to us that my son would be butchered like a piece of cheap meat."
She described a meeting with the pathologist, who used graphic language to reveal how he stuffed dead babies' bodies with cotton wool after removing their organs. She felt this was an attempt to upset her and her husband, who were expected to "listen rather than to talk".
Celine Meredith described how she only considered the possibility that her five-day-old daughter, Jennifer, might have had her organs removed in 1987 after hearing a radio programme on the issue many years later.
Hospital staff told her at the time of her daughter's death that it was not advisable to see her. They eventually gave her a picture of her daughter after her death, in which she appeared bruised and purple, she said.
It was not until much later that she realised why Jennifer appeared like this. "I thought I would die from the heartache. To this day I still feel stress and upset at what happened."
Charlotte Yeates of Parents for Justice said the forum had been a "first step" on the road to healing for the families. "Their grief and pain has to be acknowledged. By having private inquiries, the Government has swept their pain and anguish under the carpet."