Lack of prosecutions for institutional abuse of children deemed ‘scandalous’

The lack of progress on prosecutions since the Ryan Report into institutional abuse of children is being deemed as 'scandalous'.

There is only been one prosecution out of 15 cases despite 15,000 victims coming forward.

The Government is expected to be heavily criticised for the lack of investigations, in recommendations being published today by UNCAT (United Nations Committee against Torture).

Solicitor Fiona Fox says according to an Amnesty report around 170,000 children who went through the doors of the industrial schools were affected.

“The number who were affected by abuse is massive and of all those, to have only 15 investigations and one prosecution is frankly scandalous,” said Ms Fox.

“We have instances of testimonials of individual survivors who went to their local Garda station and made reports. We don’t understand why those weren’t followed up so it’s a question that needs to be answered,” she added.