PUBLIC disclosure of the scandalous cruelty that we relentlessly visited on help a less children by nuns in Goldenbridge orphanage raises yet more profound questions about the role of the church in institutional abuse of children and the legacy of child care services in this State.

That abuse was perpetrated by female religious and to hear the former orphans speak in such vivid terms as "that awful animal of a nun" makes it all the more shocking. Without doubt, serious questions need to be answered as to how such abuse could happen. A public apology for these past offences by the Sisters of Mercy is at least a start.

Vitally important questions also arise about public accountability and what is being done today to prevent such institutional child abuse.

While the disclosures of the orphans of Goldenbridge add a new chapter to public knowledge of the pain endured by such children and adults, it is no consolation to them that we already know a good deal about how appalling the care provided for children in some residential institutions has been historically.

In 1980 the final report of the Task Force on Child Care Services noted "the alarming complacency and indifference of both the general public and the various government departments and statutory bodies responsible for the welfare of children in care". In 1970, the Kennedy Report had already revealed that huge under resourced residential child care institutions were largely unfit to meet the complex needs of children in care.

Real efforts have been made since "the 1970s to modernise child care" services, which have included the closure of the large institutions like Goldenbridge to create smaller, more manageable and child centred "family "group homes". Many improvements appear to have resulted in better standards of care provision for children, and in the process, awareness of the needs of children in care and the risks of abuse has increased.

However, improvements in child care services have not stopped many children from allegedly being abused in care right up to the present. Recent disclosures about alleged abuse in Madonna House children's home, and Trudder House, which provided care for children from the travelling community, to mention only two of a number of alleged cases, illustrate that full accountability for the safety of children in care is something that the public is fully entitled to today.

The State has a great obligation to treat such vulnerable children as citizens and provide them, and their parents, with explanations for its apparent failures to protect them, offering reassurance that it will at least be accountable enough to try to do better in the future.

An ability to learn from failures from the system that we know to have happened is especially important now if we are to provide the special care and protection that vulnerable children need and the opportunity to establish trusting relationships with reliable adults who understand their needs and are "sale" to be around.

THE biggest outrage in terms of the State's failure to be accountable is to do with the Madonna House case. After a man employed there was convicted on charges of sexual abuse, a report was prepared by an investigation committee into a large number of alleged cases there. Yet the authorities have sat on the report for months and it appears increasingly unlikely that it will ever see the light of day.

This, we have been informed in a very vague way indeed from time to time, is apparently due to legal difficulties concerning risks of compromising the integrity of key personnel whose behaviour was inquired into.

In effect, officials in various government departments and the religious order which ran Madonna House must know a great deal about how many children are alleged to have been abused there, how that abuse was allowed to have happened, who knew about it, and how it was that such abuse was allowed to continue undiscovered for so long. Yet not one sentence of these findings has been shared with the public.

Aside from the avoidable human suffering involved in these cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money were pumped into institutions like Madonna House, yet the public is not even viewed as worthy of a decent public statement as to why the State refuses to be accountable.

In reality, of course, it should be possible to publish something. It should be possible to list some recommendations and/or guidelines about the prevention of abuse in care and management of suspected cases in a manner which is no way compromises legalities and the integrity of any individual.

There is an urgent need for not only the religious organisations involved, but the Department of Health to avoid cover ups by being fully accountable in a manner that can make a difference to the lives of those who were abused in care. And such openness and transparency are essential to promoting our awareness of what the State and other agencies must do in the interests of protecting vulnerable children in future.