The Let Our Voices Emerge (LOVE) group, which campaigns on behalf of religious who ran residential institutions for children, is to seek charitable status.
The group, which is made up of former residents of the institutions, was founded last October and has been funded since by a loan taken out by its founder, Ms Florence Horsman Hogan.
She said yesterday it had been her intention to wind up the campaign at the end of this month, but that so many lay people had been in contact with the group recently, alleging they too had been falsely accused of sexually abusing children, it was felt the group should go on.
LOVE's focus in recent months has been on a campaign to highlight the cases of religious, or former religious, who had been falsely accused.
Ms Horsman Hogan said last night she had recently been contacted by 32 people alleging false accusation and had been encouraging the people concerned to organise themselves along lines similar to support groups for the falsely accused in the UK and US.
She said she had taken out a €3,000 loan to fund LOVE last October and that her land-line phone bill alone last month came to €350.
If LOVE had charitable status it would be in a position to accept donations and engage in fund raising, she said.
Ms Horsman Hogan can be contacted at fhorsmanhogan@eircom.net or 086-8762148.
