Divisions among survivor groups over abuse memorial

SURVIVOR groups are divided over plans to move ahead with a €500,000 memorial to commemorate those who were abused as children in residential institutions.

A committee set up by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe in October to oversee the memorial has issued a call for suggestions on where it should be erected and on its design. The project was recommended by the report last May of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse chaired by Mr Justice Sean Ryan, and is to include an inscription of then taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s 1999 apology on behalf of the state to the victims of abuse in residential institutions. Christine Buckley, co-director of the Aislinn Education and Support Centre, said the memorial would send a clear message about how horrendous the abuse was that took place in more than 200 institutions.

“It will give a message that our children, their children and generations will never forget. I would like to see it erected in O’Connell Street, in bronze, to set it apart from other statues, and it would be lovely if it could be made by survivors because there are plenty great artists who were in those places,” she said.