Those abused as children now feel mistreated as adults

"Abuse ruined their childhoods and has been an ever-present part of their adult lives . . . 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."

So said Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he made a "sincere and long overdue" apology to those who had been physically, emotionally or sexually abused in "institutions and other places" and announced the formation of a Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. That was May 1999. Today, after more than a year of buck-passing and delays, the commission finally holds its first public sitting.

This should be a great day for abuse survivors, providing them with a long-awaited public acknowledgement of the wrongs done to them and a forum through which some of those wrongs might be righted. Instead, they are increasingly perturbed about the Government's handling of the matter generally and about the commission's terms of reference in particular. So perturbed that one of the largest victim support groups, Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), is urging its members to boycott the commission.

"What our members wanted was for the people responsible for abuse, and those who regulated the institutions at the time, to be summoned to an independent tribunal and made accountable for their actions," says John Kelly, co-ordinator of Irish SOCA. "What we are getting feels like a damage limitation exercise."

Most of the concern expressed by SOCA and other support groups focuses on the issue of immunity. "It seems to us like a `deal' has been done," John Kelly says. "In return for co-operation, abusers have been given guarantees that evidence uncovered by the commission will not be admissible in any future court case."

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act puts it thus: "A statement or admission made by a person before the commission or a committee . . . shall not be admissible as evidence against the person . . . in any criminal proceedings . . . or in any civil proceeding in a court or other tribunal." According to the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, this provision is aimed at "encouraging maximum co-operation with the commission's investigative functions".

"How on earth can the Minister state it is therapeutic for survivors to sit and listen to their abusers give testimony of guilt, then watch them walk off, knowing that such testimony can never be used?" says John Kelly.

Paul Doyle, secretary to the commission, rationalises the offending clauses as essential under the law. All citizens are entitled to a right to silence. Because the commission will have the powers to compel witnesses to give evidence, their rights must be protected by privileges and immunities.

Another complaint is that abusers will be free to appoint their own legal representation while survivors are to have a legal team appointed by the State on their collective behalf. John Kelly reads this as a continuance of a paternalist system that once gave them savage beatings and other "reprimands", "for their own good".

"We are not a collective, faceless mass," he says. "Each of us is an individual who has been wronged. Why should we not have the same legal status as the abusers or the institutions? Instead, victims will be cross-examined by the best legal brains the State can provide for itself."

Paul Doyle disputes this claim. "My understanding is that the legal expenses scheme has not been finalised. The commission intends to do as full a job as possible in accordance with the Act."

John Kelly argues right back: "This commission is being run by the Department of Education, the very people who allowed the abuse to go on in the first place. The scales of justice are weighing too heavily in favour of the State and the institutions."

And so it goes on, back and forwards, claim against counter-claim. Is this really how it should be? The people SOCA represents once suffered harrowing abuse while in the care of the State. Surely the onus is on the State to allay their anxieties?

Instead, government actions over the past months seem determined to add new insult to old injury. For example, victims of physical and emotional abuse were excluded from favourable amendments to the Statute of Limitations. In a similar spirit, letters sent by the Garda on instructions from the DPP informed victims that physical and emotional cruelty are to be classified as common assault, not abuse. Survivors are furious at this pre-empting of the commission's work, seeing it as the State's attempt to protect itself in advance.

In his speech a year ago, the Taoiseach said: "We hope that [the commission] will be a forum that will inspire the confidence of victims, whose co-operation is essential to its success." On that measure, it would appear to have failed before it has even held its first public sitting.

Survivors will consider their response to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse's first sitting at a public meeting this Saturday, at noon in the Gresham Hotel, Dublin. All abuse survivors welcome. Further details from 01-8252353. SOCA can be reached at 01-4550413