Sister Stanislaus Kennedy is one of the most admired people in Ireland. The founder of Focus Ireland, the organisation for the homeless, she has been an advocate for the poor for over 30 years and was the first chairwoman of the Combat Poverty Committee, precursor of the Combat Poverty Agency.

However, some disappointment was expressed this week at her response to the States of Fear programme and the subsequent discussion of it.

After she was filmed for the programme over a commentary stating that she would not discuss the abuse in St Joseph's industrial school, she then appeared the next day on Morning Ireland to rebut any suggestion that she knew sexual abuse was going on there.

On Morning Ireland she said: "A childcare worker did come to me about physical abuse in Kilkenny. He was very concerned, he was so concerned that he had me concerned. I advised him very strongly to go to management about it, to go to the authorities. He did, and he later resigned, and the man was dismissed." This clearly refers to a complaint made by Eddie Murphy about Myles Brady, who, following complaints, was dismissed.

Referring to the question of sexual abuse, she told Morning Ire- land: "I did not know that there was sexual abuse. In the report last night it said that I spoke to the gardai 20 years later, which I did - exactly 20 years later, in 1997.

"I told them that this man came to me about the other man who was physically abusing and I was talking to the gardai, I was chatting with them. I knew them, I was in Kilkenny, and they knew me. And I was retrospectively thinking would I have thought there was sexual abuse, because I took seriously the physical abuse and took action and advised the man to go.

"So I'm answering your question by saying it was 1997 now, and I'm saying `Gosh! I wonder was there sexual abuse?' And I said that in that kind of way to the guards, meaning that way, looking back."

This gives the impression of an informal, friendly discussion with gardai in order to help them with an ongoing investigation. However, what took place was a lot more formal. Sister Stanislaus gave a formal witness statement, in the presence of her solicitor, to Sgt John Tuohy and Garda William Maher in Kilkenny in December 1995. It is signed by her and the gardai concerned.

The statement recalled Mr Murphy's report of suspected physical abuse on the part of Myles Brady. Sister Stanislaus said in the statement: "He [Eddie Murphy] complained to me that Myles Brady was physically abusing the children. I picked up on it that he [Brady] might have been sexually abusing them as well. I told Eddie Murphy to tell Sister Conception. Eddie Murphy came back to me and said the children were going to tell the guards."

This section of the statement is at least open to the interpretation that Sister Stanislaus had the impression at the time of the com- plaint by Eddie Murphy that sexual abuse was going on. When asked for a further interview with The Irish Times to clarify this question, a spokeswoman for the sister said that she had nothing to add to her earlier comments.

Others working in childcare in Kilkenny around that time recall a general, if vague, awareness of a possible problem of the sexual abuse of children in St Joseph's.

One such childcare worker told The Irish Times: "To my knowledge, Eddie Murphy let his complaint be known to the Irish Association of Child Care Workers. There was an issue about kids being taken out for the day. I was very young and I knew I was very uncomfortable about it. The religious management took no responsibility for this.

"It was a very autocratic system, it was not a child-friendly system. The Sisters of Charity were the social services in Kilkenny at that time and were very proud of it. There was a lot of very good work, but there was a shadow from the past in how things were done. This denial really is selective memory. There was system failure [in relation to St Joseph's] and there should have been contriteness. The lack of contriteness is very irritating."

Sister Stanislaus was born 59 years ago in Lispole, Co Kerry. She never had a religious vocation as such. "I just knew I wanted to work with the poor . . . the religious aspect came later. Or perhaps I should say I understood the religious aspect later", she said last year.

She joined the Sisters of Charity in Dublin after leaving secondary school and was deeply shocked by the urban poverty she first witnessed in Ringsend.

After doing a degree and a postgraduate diploma in social studies at UCD and Manchester University she was appointed to the reforming Bishop Peter Birch's Kilkenny Social Services Centre, later becoming its director. She first made headlines in Kilkenny in 1971 when she said that the religious should identify with the poor and lead simple lives without big houses, cars and holidays.

As long ago as the mid-1980s she was being described by Labour politicians such as Eithne Fitzgerald as "one of the consciences of the country".

In 1985, after carrying out a study of homeless women in Dublin, Sister Stan - as she had become known - set up Focus Point in Temple Bar as an advice centre, coffee shop and 24-hour telephone line for homeless people.