Abuse claims require a balanced approach

MY recent performance on the Vincent Browne radio show discussion on the Child Abuse Commission has evidently been causing Ryle Dwyer sleepless nights. He has used a second column (Irish Examiner, January 28) to bash me.

This time he chastises me for bringing up the case of Willie Delaney, a former resident of Letterfrack industrial school whose body was exhumed in 2001 following allegations by former residents that he had been beaten to death. As he correctly points out, I did so after the Joseph Pyke case was brought up.

Commentator Breda O’Brien was pointing out, in response to Mary Raftery of ‘States of Fear’ fame, that this case was not as cut-and-dried as it seemed and it was going much too far to declare definitively that he had died as a result of foul play.