75 years: Abuse files to be secret

A child abuse survivor has criticised the Government’s decision to lock the personal witness statements victims gave to state investigations away for 75 years as “very extreme” and “odd”.

Andrew Madden made the remarks after the Cabinet confirmed it is to withhold the evidence for privacy and legal advice reasons.

The decision not to make the files publicly available is based on recommendations in the Ryan report. It was put forward yesterday by Jan O’ Sullivan, the education minister, and will see the files withheld for almost twice as long as State papers are normally kept.