The majority of children committed by the courts to industrial and reformatory schools were guilty of no offence other than to be destitute, orphans or born to parents who simply could not provide for them, the Minister for Education and Science, Dr Woods, told the Dβil.
"Efforts to brand such children as juvenile criminals are both offensive and inaccurate," said the Minister, who was introducing the Second Stage of the Residential Institutions Redress Bill 2001.
The Bill would provide financial awards to people who as children suffered abuse in such residential institutions for which public bodies had responsibility: "It is a Bill about the past, about facing up to mistakes made and providing some reasonable measure of financial recompense to people who were wronged as children."
Concern had been expressed that setting up a scheme of financial redress for victims of abuse in childhood would prejudice the effectiveness of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. This was based on the view that former residents of the institutions would be encouraged to make their claim to the Redress Board only.
"The commission and the proposed Residential Institutions Redress Board are separate bodies with very different functions," said Dr Woods. Both bodies were part of the Government's response and were intended as "going some way" towards serving the needs of victims. Those needs included the need to be believed: "they also want answers as to why abuse happened to them and who were the responsible parties".
The compensation provided for was through an ex-gratia scheme. "It involves no finding of fault and no declaration of liability." It was designed to address the fact that the institutions concerned had departed from the normal requirements of childcare.
"It acknowledges that because of this many people who were in institutional care have, through much of their lives, carried serious psychological scars." As such, it sought to provide reasonable financial compensation - an approach that had caused some concern that awards would be made on the basis of untested evidence.
That was not the case, the Minister insisted: "Any person before the Redress Board must first establish that he or she is suffering or has suffered some significant injury, physical or psychological." They also must establish the injury was consistent with the abuse, as alleged.
"There is a very real concern among the religious orders, who were the owners and managers of the institutions, that the scheme amounts to a significant injustice to them," the Minister continued. They were concerned that the validation process would, in effect, "associate all members who worked in the institutions in the past with abuse". They feared this would bring disrepute even to present-day members of religious congregations: "All of this will occur without giving the individuals concerned or the congregations an opportunity to defend themselves."
It did no service to the task of facing up to the mistakes of the past "to characterise the congregations who managed the institutions as the villains".