AN independent inspectorate to investigate the handling of child abuse cases is to be established by the Minister for Health.
Mr Noonan has also announced that the Eastern Health Board is following up people who were residents in a children's home in Wicklow to which the nun who has been accused of brutality towards children at Goldenbridge, Dublin, was transferred by the Sisters of Mercy.
At present, there is no agency to inquire in to the treatment of children by health boards or by children's homes. Inquiries have been set up by health boards by the Minister for Health - in the Kilkenny incest case - and by religious orders.
Only the report of the inquiry into the Kilkenny incest case has been published and the Minister's announcement that an independent inspectorate will be set up to conduct inquiries in future follows widespread criticism of the present situation.
The inspectorate, he said on RTE's Questions and Answers programme last night, will publish an annual report.
The Eastern Health Board inquiry into conditions at a home in Wicklow follows last week's RTE documentary on brutality towards children at the Sisters of Mercy orphanage in Goldenbridge.
The nun whom the former residents held to be responsible for the worst of the abuse was transferred in the 1960s. One former resident told The Irish Times yesterday that the nun had been sent to a boy's orphanage from Goldenbridge.
While the focus in the past week ha5 been on brutality by nuns, the resident also said that she had been stripped naked and savagely beaten on many occasions by lay members of the staff, who had also behaved brutally towards other children.