Book Review: The State is still failing victims of institutional neglect

"No criminal prosecution has been taken against anyone who abused residents of the Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes, or other institutions or against those who carried out or facilitated illegal adoptions, apart from one minor prosecution of a midwife in 1965, who continued to run an adoption agency for years afterwards."

The Mother and baby homes Commission of Investigation final report volumes one to six at the Tuam site in Co Galway. Many survivors were angered at how how survivor testimony was used, and how the members of the Commission refused to appear before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions. Picture: Andy Newman

• Redress: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice
• Edited by Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke and James M Smith
• UCD Press, €25