Social workers in Dublin are contacting former residents of a Department of Education special school for boys as part of a sex abuse investigation. The inquiry at St Laurence's Special Residential School in Finglas began last year after the Eastern Health Board received a letter from Mr Bertie Ahern, then leader of the Opposition. He had been contacted by a former civil servant, Ms Loreto Byrne.
It is understood two former residents have made complaints against two De La Salle brothers. The order ran the school on behalf of the Department until 1995. It is now run by the Department.
The EHB is believed to be contacting up to 50 men who were in St Laurence's in the 1980s.
Broadening the EHB inquiry is the latest development in a series of events which include a previous Garda investigation and an allegation at the Dail Public Accounts Committee that Ms Byrne had been "sent to the gulags" by the Department of Finance.
Ms Byrne was a high-ranking civil servant in the Department of Education in the late 1980s. She alleges that early in 1988 she became aware of allegations of sexual abuse at Finglas Children's Centre, which includes both St Laurence's and St Michael's assessment centre.
Shortly after she began to look into the matter she was returned to the Department of Finance from which she had been on loan to the Department of Education. She retired five years ago in her mid-30s under the early retirement scheme and has since completed a law degree at UCD.
At a meeting of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee in 1995, Mr Des O'Malley TD alleged that "the Department of Finance sent her to the gulags".
Since her retirement she has consistently complained that the allegations made in the 1980s were not investigated.
The Department of Education appeared to confirm this when it told The Irish Times that in 1988 the director of Finglas Children's Centre and the Department's child-care adviser discussed Ms Byrne's "views" and "concluded that no further action was warranted".
A Garda investigation in 1994 found no evidence of abuse in the 1980s, according to the Department.
Ms Byrne maintained at the time that the gardai had not interviewed any former residents of Finglas Children's Centre in that investigation. The Garda Press Office refused to comment on her allegation.
A new Garda investigation has been continuing for some time in tandem with the EHB investigation.
Early this year a De La Salle Brother was suspended from St Patrick's Training School in west Belfast following new allegations made in February relating to a period in the 1980s when he worked at Finglas Children's Centre.