NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News
By Gareth Gordon
BBC News NI Political Correspondent
Child abuse survivors have said they felt so “belittled” during a meeting with the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland they almost walked out.
They told a Stormont committee that Archbishop Eamon Martin had given the impression that he felt the church was now the victim.
Jon McCourt and Margaret McGuckian also claimed the Executive Office had let victims down by failing to establish a compensation scheme following the end of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA).
And they claimed ministers had ignored repeated requests for meetings over a nine-month period.
But they reserved their strongest criticism for the Catholic Church, claiming that during a meeting with Archbishop Martin in Armagh in July he seemed to believe it was turning from an issue of concern about the abuse of children into a financial argument about compensation.
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