A ground radar scan was undertaken at one of the most notorious mother and baby homes and found "anomalies" that could be mass graves of babies buried there.
Campaigners want a re-evaluation of Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary as they believe that mass burials there could be even bigger than at Tuam, Co. Galway.
One of the people calling for a new inquiry of the site is survivor, Philomena Lee, whose story inspired the Oscar-nominated movie 'Philomena' starring Judi Dench.
TST Engineering Company detected a number of locations on the site with likely human activity beneath the surface.
This company is the same one that found 796 babies' bodies in a septic tank in Tuam, Co. Galway.
Almost 1,100 babies died at the home in Tipperary between 1931 and 1969 – but only 42 infant remains were found by the Commission of Inquiry.
TST director Simone Demurtas said further investigation is needed as their findings do not match those of the Commissions 2019 report.
He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Normally in a field like this you should see nothing, you see a flat layer of soil. But an anomaly, which is a target underground, leads me to believe that there is something underneath.
“There are two drainage systems in that field very close to each other. I don’t understand why such a small field has such a large drainage system.”
Rachael Keogh, of the Bring Them Home campaign, who fundraised to have the independent scan carried out, said the new information is of serious concern.
She said: “They excavated 10 percent of that area, and in that 10 percent they found 42 baby remains. But they never mentioned anything about the new findings that we’ve found... so that’s really concerning.”
She said the engineers’ geo scans suggest the anomalies could be mass graves on a scale “bigger than Tuam”.
Rachael added: “There is a very large anomaly, 20 metres in length and two metres wide. There are two other anomalies connected to that, and then on the right-hand side of the Angels Plot, there are loads of anomalies on different levels.
“The engineers say that they would suspect there are graves.”
The Irish Sunday Mirror understands that Minister Roderic O’Gorman has given the green light for Sean Ross Abbey to be scanned, but no timeline has been given.
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