AUSTRALIA/IRELAND
ABC News
[with video]
The judge who ran an inquiry into child abuse and neglect in Irish institutions says the Australian Government should not put an arbitrary time frame on its royal commission into child sexual abuse.
Ireland is the only other country to have launched a national child abuse inquiry similar to that announced on Monday by Australia’s Prime Minister.
The majority of allegations investigated by the commission, led by high court judge Sean Ryan, related to 60 residential schools operated by the Catholic Church, who were funded and supervised by Ireland’s department of education.
After nine years of inquiries, the commission reported its findings in 2009.
It said rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care was endemic: the entire system that held 30,000 children treated them more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential, and that some religious officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.
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