A final, damning report on the way many vulnerable children were treated in State and religious-run institutions and the responses of the agencies concerned was published yesterday by the former chairwoman of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Ms Justice Laffoy.
Signing off on her involvement - she resigned last summer in protest over delays, a lack of resources and on-going obstruction by the Department of Education - Ms Justice Laffoy reiterated her criticism that most religious institutions had responded in an adversarial way to her investigations.
Just how terrible and soul-destroying some of those institutions were for children can be gleaned from horrific accounts of what happened at Baltimore industrial school in Co Cork in the 1930s and 1940s.
An early report was possible in the case of that school because the Diocese of Cloyne and Ross did not contest official reports or the evidence of witnesses who detailed conditions there. The situation was very different in relation to religious orders. With the exception of the Presentation Brothers and the Rosminian Institute, Ms Justice Laffoy said they had adopted an adversarial, unco-operative response to the Investigation Committee. Elsewhere, as delays and costs mounted, the Commission was kept short of resources. And the Department of Education engaged in persistent unco-operative behaviour.
There is a whiff of self-exoneration about this report. Delays were the responsibility of the Coalition Government, of the Department of Education and of the religious orders. Two reviews by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, in an attempt to cut legal costs by dealing with sample cases rather than expand the investigation teams, had undermined the process. In spite of that, the document represents a powerful plea on behalf of those so grievously wronged in institutional care.
The opposition parties have asked the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to take responsibility for the inquiry because of a conflict of interests at the Department of Education. And Mr Dempsey must explain why senior officials in his Department failed to co-operate. There are other serious problems, including a loss of trust by participants in the process. On top of that, the new chairman of the Commission, Mr Justice Ryan, was recently criticised for suggesting a change in methodology for the inquiry, involving group hearings and the preliminary examinations of witnesses.
To allow Mr Justice Ryan to proceed effectively, the Government must clarify these issues and get on with the job of making amends for past failures.