The Department of Education in recent days has handed to the Laffoy Commission a substantial number of files relating to suspected child abuse in up to 500 industrial schools.
The move to provide the documents, which involved the searching of around 1.5 million documents, follows criticism from Ms Justice Laffoy that the Department was not "engaging" with the inquiry.
The commission has been seeking the files for the last year-and-a-half, which prompted Ms Laffoy to say last March that she was "worn out" by expressions of contrition from the Department that are not matched by delivery.
She added at the time: "It beggars belief that we are where we are today. We are 18 months down the road, and the Department is still not dealing directly with requests from the commission."
A Department of Education spokesman confirmed that the files had been provided to the commission in time for June 27th, a deadline set by Ms Justice Laffoy for the documents to be handed over.
The records will be used by the Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is investigating abuse allegations in a range of institutions between 1940 and 1999. The files come at a time when the commission is embarking on the investigative phase of its inquiry, which is expected to involve adversarial hearings with many religious.
At least 3,100 people have so far approached the Laffoy Commission with claims that they suffered abuse while in industrial schools, while 2,500 more are taking separate legal actions against congregations.
The Department has defended itself by insisting that it has complied with discovery directions from the commission over the last three years, while claiming that the time-frame for submission of the most recent documents was too narrow.
The Department has so far provided over 500,000 documents records relating to the old industrial and reformatory schools system to the commission's investigation committee on a voluntary basis. This documentation was provided in electronic format between 2000 and 2002.
The commission has also had difficulty obtaining files on time from the Christian Brothers which has been asked to respond, to statements from more than 700 people who claimed they were abused while in the care of the order.
The Christian Brothers said they were "taken aback" by a request that all outstanding replies be submitted by June 30th, many of which were detailed and involved allegations relating to up to 16 brothers.
The commission said it could not proceed with this part of its investigation until it had received replies to all statements.
The commission is also investigating the circumstances surrounding three vaccine trials which took place between 1960 and 1973. Five religious orders have sought legal representation for this element of the inquiry. Just one person believed to have been subjected to the vaccine trials has contacted the inquiry, according to media reports.
