Abuse victims plan protests

WITH growing suicide rates among child abuse victims, support groups are planning widespread protests if the work of a long-awaited compensation board fails to get underway next month.

Right of Place, which has 1,180 registered members in Ireland and Britain, has lost 94 people, including 18 to suicide, since Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised to victims of institutional abuse in May 1999. "Those are the deaths that we actually know about. I'm sure there are more, said Right of Place chairman Noel Barry.

"We want the Residential Institutions Redress Board to begin work as promised on December 2, before any more of our members die.