Letters to the Editor: Sectarian terms of reference in school abuse

The government inquiry’s sectarian terms of reference should be changed, writes one correspondent.

It is reported that the Irish government’s scoping inquiry into historical sexual abuse in day and boarding schools is not limited to private fee-paying schools. But it is limited to Roman Catholic-ethos schools. No abuse victim in a Protestant-ethos school may participate in the inquiry’s “survivor engagement process”. That is sectarian.

In 2016 Patrick O’Brien, a St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin volunteer, treasurer of the Friends of St Patrick’s fundraising body, was convicted of sample charges of 1980s sexual abuse of choristers, pupils of St Patrick’s Cathedral Grammar School.