'Children are being fired across the foster care system'

Ray Noctor is the first person to take on the state in relation to child sexual abuse in industrial schools. Picture: Patrick Browne

The first man to sue the State after he was sexually abused in an industrial school has said recent reports from the foster care system and the structure of the latest redress scheme show “the Irish government didn’t care about children then — and it doesn’t care now”.

Ray Noctor, 64, from Co. Carlow, was put into St Joseph’s Industrial School in Co. Kilkenny when he was eight years old, shortly after his mother Kathleen died from pneumonia and bronchitis.