A team of international experts is preparing to commence a formal excavation at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.
Those overseeing the process say they hope it will add "depth and detail" to questions that persist around burial practices at the home over a 36-year period.
Forensic anthropologists and archaeologists from Columbia, Spain, the UK, Australia and the United States have joined Irish counterparts in recent weeks to take part in the process.
They have been participating in pre-excavation briefings over the last fortnight, before ground is broken at the site in the Dublin Road estate next week.
It is expected to take at least two years to complete the dig.
A media briefing to provide an update on the work is being held this morning. It has attracted a large number of local, national and international news outlets.
The Director of the Office for Authorised Intervention in Tuam (ODAIT), Daniel MacSweeney, has again emphasised the importance of ensuring that survivors and relatives of those who lived and died in the Tuam Home are at the centre of the process.
They will take part in a private visit to the location where the works will take place tomorrow.
Mr MacSweeney said the first objective was to recover all of the human remains from the site and to re-bury them with dignity. Where possible, the remains will be identified and returned to their families.
He said the complexity of the task could not be underestimated, given the size and nature of the site in question.
Dr Niamh McCullagh, the Senior Forensic Consultant who will oversee the excavation and exhumation process, said the random nature in which remains were buried added to that difficulty.
She already carried out preliminary excavations at the site in 2016 and 2017, which revealed the presence of 20 individual chambers two metres below ground. Each contained co-mingled (mixed) skeletal remains of children, aged between 35 foetal weeks and around three years of age.
Dr McCullagh said that while radio carbon dating on some bones places their time of living between 1925 and 1961, they have lost their "skeletal order", further complicating the process. For this reason, the skeletal identification is one of the most significant challenges.
DNA samples have already been collected from a small number of relatives and this process will be expanded in the coming months to gather as much genetic evidence as possible.
The Bon Secours Sisters, which operated the Home for Galway County Council, has provided the ODAIT with its archive. This will be cross referenced with other records available as the process continues.
'Unprecedented challenge'
Mr MacSweeney said that in the last month, they have been contacted by 30 family members who had not previously contacted them.
Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, he said he expects that number to rise due to the level of media engagement around the excavation.
He said the ultimate objective of the excavation is to "restore dignity".
The remains are currently in a "manifestly inappropriate place", he said, and he hopes a "respectful and dignified burial" would still be possible.
He said it is an "unprecedented challenge" because the site is in the middle of a housing estate.
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"It's surrounded by houses on all sides and it's got limited access. Before the site was a Mother and Baby Home, it was a work house, so there were also famine remains recovered nearby," he said.
"All of these things make the site more challenging. The fact that we are dealing with large numbers of co-mingled infant remains is very difficult. It's very difficult to distinguish male from female at that age, so there are huge challenges in terms of the site and the remains that we will deal with."
Mr MacSweeney said there was also a lack of archival data and a lack of clarity about family trees.
He said they have access to the records of the institution itself, and also records of the Bon Secours, and they are going through those now.
"You cannot underestimate the complexity of this, it really is an unprecedented situation. This is why we have brought together international experts to meet the complexity of it," he said.
