Mother and baby homes survivors will be refunded inheritance tax they were forced to pay on land left to them by foster parents under plans being developed by the Government.

A Mother and Baby Homes Action Plan will set up to 22 measures the Government will take to address the concerns of survivors.

One of the issues raised by the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes was the unfair taxes survivors had to pay on land left to them by foster parents.

The commission said some children who were boarded out inherited farms from their foster parents, but had to pay taxes for which birth and adopted children would not be liable.

The action plan commits to establishing an interdepartmental working group to examine how to set up a repayment scheme and application process within the first three months of next year.

It also promises to open the application process for a financial support scheme for survivors at some stage next year.

A lot of work has gone into developing a scheme over the course of this year, including a consultation process which saw more than 450 written submissions examined. Legislation for the scheme will be before the Dáil next year.

Separately, the plan commits to establishing a children’s fund in honour of children who died in mother and baby homes.

The scheme will be open to disadvantaged children and will be launched before next July. The application process will open next year but it will be the third quarter of 2023 before recipients get their grants.

There are also commitments to consider expanding the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes database to take in information on children who were boarded out to foster families or sent to industrial schools.

The action plan also emphasises previous promises to ensure survivors have access to the information collected by the commission which is now in the control of the Department of Children.

More work will be put into improving General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) to give survivors better access to personal health information in the Commission’s files.

The Government will also continue to progress information and tracing legislation to allow for better exchange of information between adoptees and their biological families. This will include new provisions for sharing important health information.

The plan also commits to progressing burial legislation to support the excavation, exhumation and, where possible, the identification of remains. This will lead to dignified reburial of children who died in mother and baby homes. The actions set out in the report were developed with survivors and their representative groups and it follows a full State apology from Taoiseach Micheál Martin.