Sir, - Joe Foyle (April 26th) questions the reasoning behind the public paying compensation to victims of institutional abuse. That there was so much abuse within these institutions is now a matter of public record, but what is not so well known about is abuse by employers and family members of employers.
Who will ask of those who employed boys and girls from these institutions to admit that they could not eat with the family, nor sit in the same room or kitchens as the rest of the family; that they were made to sleep in outhouses rather than within the main houses and that only on a Sunday morning were they seen together at Mass as part of the family group?
What nameless people we were then - addressed as "the boy from Glin" or "the convent girl". What redress did we have when frustrations caused difficulties within the families or work place? The State institutions failed to even visit us or monitor our transition from institution to family life "outside". When finally we had had enough and left the employment found for us by the institutions, we spent many months or years on the streets, unable to understand what life was meant to hold for us. We do not wish to dwell too long on these times lest we again see the depths which we had reached.
I hope Mr Foyle will have been spared all this and I know that he will want to pray for those who are still suffering as a direct result of their time in these institutions. He would wish also that the Government, which "committed" these children through the State courts to these institutions and the religious who were responsible for them once there should now be held to account. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Hayes, Secretary to Alliance, Victim Support Group. Richhill, Co Armagh.