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	New Legislation to Streamline Child Abuse Hearings By Harry McGee One in Four [Ireland] March 24, 2005 THE Government will today publish legislation designed to prevent protracted hearings in the Commission Inquiring into Child Abuse. Education Minister Mary Hanafin yesterday announced the bill which she intends to have enacted before the summer. The bill will remove the obligation on the commission’s Investigation Committee to hold a full hearing into each and every allegation of abuse referred to it. Instead, the 1,300 complainants will have the opportunity to be interviewed by the committee. However, under the new legislation, the committee will now have the discretion to call as many witnesses as necessary to full hearing. The legislation stems from a report drawn up by commission chairman Mr Justice Sean Ryan examining how the commission could streamline its work so that it could complete its inquiries within a more reasonable time frame, and at a lower cost than envisaged. Mr Justice Ryan’s predecessor as chairperson, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, resigned as a result of a dispute with then Education Minister Noel Dempsey over the resources available to the commission. Mr Dempsey refused the commission permission to take on additional legal personnel, pending the outcome of the review. He argued that, as it was then constituted, the commission would cost upwards of 1 billion and would take many years to complete. The legislation was welcomed yesterday by Colm O’Gorman of the One in Four organisation, which offers support and counselling to victims of abuse. "We have found under Justice Ryan, the commission has found a new lease of life and had moved along at a quicker pace," he said. "What Sean Ryan was eager to point out in his report was that the commission will meet with every individual. It will then determine the evidence and decide which will go to a full hearing." Mr O’Gorman said, however, that the commission as constituted now was not the one that was originally envisaged and he could fully understand the anger and disappointment of victims. "Nevertheless, constitutionally there is no other way forward. The commission, as initially conceived, was never a realistic format. It never achieved what it was set up to do." In its original format, full hearings were allowed for all victims. However, they were subject to long delays because of protracted legal arguments made on behalf of persons who were accused of abusing children in institutions.
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