Dirty priests

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					Report on Irish child abuse due

				More than 35,000 children were placed in church-run institutions

The findings of a nine-year inquiry
into abuse suffered by children in Catholic institutions in Ireland
over a 60-year period are due to be published.
About 35,000 children were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses up to the 1980s. 
More than 2,000 told the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse they suffered physical and sexual abuse while there. 
The BBC's Mark Simpson said the inquiry was expected to criticise the Church's handling of sex abuse complaints. 
The institutions housed abandoned or neglected children, but courts also sent those guilty of truancy and petty crime. 
Unmarried mothers were also sent to institutions known as Magdalene Laundries, many by their own families. 

	Abuse survivor Patrick Walsh: 'The loss of liberty, the loss of family life was the most abusive'

Hundreds of the victims moved away from Ireland once they left the care homes and went to live in the UK. 
Many of those who are alleged to have carried out the abuse are now dead 
Apology
The
commission was established in 2000 after the then Taoiseach Bertie
Ahern issued an apology on behalf of the state to the victims of child
abuse. 
A government compensation scheme was also established.
It has already paid out almost one billion euros in compensation and
legal fees to 12,500 people. 
Led by Mr Justice Sean Ryan, the commission's report is believed to be five volumes and 2,500 pages long. 
Thousands
of abused men and women testified to the commission, which was set up
after a television series revealed the scale of the abuse. 
Journalist Mary Raftery, who was behind the series, said the extent and depravity of the abuse was "profoundly shocking". 
"It
is off the scale in terms of anything we have any knowledge of or any
ability to deal with, particularly, as it was perpetrated, in the main,
by members of religious orders," she said. 

			                            SEARCH FOR JUSTICE

			                    Shane Harrison, BBC News, Dublin 

			                     Today sees the publication of another report in the Republic about the abuse of children entrusted to the Catholic Church. 

			                    The report looks at how children were physically, sexually and emotionally abused in schools run by religious orders. 
I met three victims and heard their stories.

            Read more

Ms Raftery said the children ended up in "houses of horror" and were essentially locked up until they were 16. 
"They emerged deeply disturbed and damaged and so many of them immediately emigrated," she said. 
"They
felt their country had abandoned them as well as everything else, as
well as their religion, that just stripped them bare of any kind of
support. 
"It is an absolutely shameful episode in our history." 
The allegations include sexual abuse and repeated beating of boys and girls with a leather strap. 
Some punishments were said to be handed out for talking at mealtimes or writing left handed. 
More
than 100 institutions run by religious orders have been examined and
the inquiry is expected to produce specific findings against a number
of facilities. 
Another major report is due next month on abuse by Catholic priests working in parish churches around Dublin. 
The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, warned last month that it would "shock us all." 

Edited by The Count - 20 May 2009 at 6:28am