Trials and Contestations: Ireland’s Ryan Commission

Abstract

On behalf of the State and all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue ... ‘All children need love, care and security.’ Too many of our children were denied this love, care and security. Abuse ruined their childhoods and has been an ever present part of their adult lives, reminding them of a time when they were helpless. I want to say to them that we believe that they were gravely wronged, and that we must do all we can now to overcome the lasting effects of their ordeals.

(An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, 11 May 1999)

With this apology, the leader of the Republic of Ireland commenced his government’s official response to historic child abuse in state-sponsored care with the creation of the ambitious Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA), complemented in 2002 by the establishment of a financial compensation scheme, the Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB). During the decade between 1999 and 2009 an ambitious and wide-ranging scheme of investigation and reparation began to address a largely unacknowledged national tragedy. The commission, often referred to as the ‘Ryan Commission’ after the chairman, published its extensive conclusions in 2009 (CICA, 2009).