Child slavery aided middle class

THE Ryan comission report on institutionalised child abuse makes very clear that the organisations in control of the remand schools, industrial schools and orphanages made a very substantial profit from their operation.

It is also clear from the figures provided that the vast bulk of the inmates of these houses of horror were working class children from inner city Dublin, from the other major cities, and the urban and rural poor outside these centres. The reverberations of that abuse live on for the victims and their families to this day.

Not only was the stipend from the state for care and education siphoned off but the children were put to work in all sorts of moneymaking rackets.