Report to reveal scale of abuse at Ireland's mother and baby homes

Results of investigation expected to tell how 9,000 children died in 18 institutions between 1922 and 1998

The grim history of a network of religious institutions in Ireland that abused and shamed unmarried mothers and their children for much of the 20th century is to be laid bare.

A judicial commission of investigation into Ireland's mother and baby homes has documented shocking death rates and callousness in institutions that doubled as orphanages and adoption agencies.