The Government hopes to publish its plan to salvage the child sex abuse inquiry - possibly as early as today - despite continuing concerns that some victims' groups might not accept it. Mark Brennock and Arthur Beesley report
In a detailed defence of its handling of the inquiry, the Government implicitly accepted last night that some victims' groups would be opposed to any decision not to hear details of every complaint of abuse.
But the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said the controversial proposal to hear only sample cases was central to the Government's review.
Ministers discussed the plan at length yesterday as they struggled to regain the initiative following last week's resignation of Miss Justice Laffoy from her position as head of the inquiry.
In a lengthy document defending its actions against the judge's criticisms, the Government said victims' groups had general but not unanimous agreement in principle with the "sample case" approach.
The document was approved by the Cabinet yesterday and sent to Miss Justice Laffoy.
Letters between the Laffoy commission and the Department of Education, published last night, reveal sharp divisions and tensions between them since last December over how to proceed.
Mr Dempsey said last night that the Cabinet had yesterday agreed proposals on how to proceed. He said the proposals centred on a suggestion to hear only sample cases.
However, he said that the final proposal had not yet been completed and would depend on the outcome of a High Court challenge against the inquiry by the Christian Brothers, who are questioning the inquiry's right to investigate events that occurred decades ago.
With the High Court judgment likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, the Minister said he would have preferred a less legalistic and more co-operative approach from the religious institutions.
But last night Brother Edmund Garvey of the Christian Brothers said they had warned at an early stage that there would be legal difficulties with the inquiry.
While the Taoiseach said on Monday that he accepted the judge's complaints, the Government response last night directly challenged some of her points.
This led the Opposition to reject the Government document. The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said there was no apology in the Government's defence.
The Opposition also accused the Government of withholding the correspondence between Miss Justice Laffoy and the Department until last night, in order to enhance its own defence.
The letters reveal a prickly relationship between the commission and the Department since the commission sought a doubling of its staff in June last year to help deal with the volume of work.
Last December the judge disputed the Government's claim to have approved extra staffing in principle, saying the conditions attached made this "in substance a refusal of the request".
She complains of having been placed in "an invidious position" by the Government's review, questions whether the Government will complete its review in the time scale proposed, and says the commission has been placed in "an impossible position".
The correspondence also shows that the Government's contention throughout last week that the commission would take eight to 11 years to complete its work was based on an estimate given by the commission last November.
However, this was based on its existing staff complement of 38, which the Government says it agreed in principle last December to double.
Mr Dempsey conceded last night that should the commission get the extra staff, the time scale could be reduced to 5 to 7 years.
With Mr Dempsey under sustained political pressure over the affair, he said the Cabinet had had a number of discussions on the Government review of the commission since last December, and the Attorney general was closely involved.