One of the support groups for survivors of institutional abuse, Aislinn, said yesterday it is prepared not to have abusers named in the child abuse commission's final report if the abusers, or their heads of congregation, could be confronted by all the victims who wished to do so.
The group's co-ordinator, Ms Christine Buckley, said it was important to bring closure to the matter, along with the introduction of safeguards to ensure such abuse never happened again.
She said the group never agreed to sampling cases as a way of speeding up the work of the commission, and had told the Government last December that it was not acceptable.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Ms Buckley called on every member of the Oireachtas to resist the legal dismantling of the Commission on Child Abuse.
She also called on the Government to apologise to Miss Justice Laffoy, who resigned as chairwoman of the commission three weeks ago, and to apologise to the victims.
So far 318 victims had contacted the Aislinn centre to express their despair at the Government's handling of the matter, she said, and she called on others who felt it to register their hurt.
"We call on the Government to publish all documents relating to the changes it is proposing. They have so far failed to publish any of the internal Government documents surrounding the mysterious decision of the Minister for Education to commence a second review of the commission in April of last year, only a week after concluding the first one," she added.
"All the people who go to the Investigative Committee want is to look their abusers in the face and ask them why they did what they did," she said.
"We don't want our abusers put into prison. We never did. We just want to know why."
She said the Government had wasted the time of the victims' groups by involving them in meetings when the Government had already decided what it was going to do.
Referring to reports that the powers of the Confidential Committee of the commission would be extended to subpoena alleged abusers, she said that if this committee also had the power to "name and shame" there would be "armies of lawyers" again. "If it means bringing closure to this, it would be a pity, but we might be prepared to drop that requirement," she said. "At the end of the day we know the people and we know what they did."