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May we refer to the article "Painful truth cannot be dismissed" by Patrick Walsh (Irish SOCA) in the Irish Independent dated 19th January 2008 in relation to the Ryan Commission?
On the 26th November 2005 the Ryan Commission spread the tentacles of its curiosity into the academic world, inviting University College Dublin to carry out a study of the long-term effects on those who were in the industrial school system.
The Ryan Commission overlooked its failure to give us the names of the "experts" from the University College Dublin until the 15th June 2006 who has been assisting the Ryan Commission with their research behind closed doors.
The names of the so called "experts" are as follows:
1. Mazars will examine funding in a number of institutions.
2. Professor David Gwynn Morgan will report on: (i) Historical background (ii) Pathways into institutions.
3. Professor Anthony Staines will examine health issues and health recording in institutions.
4. Professor Robbie Gilligan will examine relevant recent institutional history post the Kennedy Report and current issues in childcare with reference to making recommendations.
5. Mr. Ciaran Fahey, Chartered Engineer, will report on buildings in a number of institutions.
6. Mr. Patrick Brennan and Mr. Richard Rollinson are expected to furnish reports on general childcare issues to enable comparisons to be made historically and with reference to U.K experience.
7. Mr. Diarmaid Ferriter is expected to report on relevant historical issues.
8. Professor Alan Carr has been engaged to carry out a survey of a representative body of former residents of institutions.
It was undertaken without any consultation with the abused.
Contact was indirect, through their solicitors.
In a letter sent out by the Ryan Commission through lawyers to the abused on 16th November 2005, consent was sought for around 400 people who made applications to appear before the Justice Laffoy Confidential Committee to be included on the panel to be questioned in the research but overlooked its failure to involve people who made applications to appear before Justice Laffoy Investigation Committee before she resigned in September 2003, accusing the Government of failing to adequately resource the commission.
Closing date for this was the 25th November2005.
This gave virtually no time at all for consultation, though the more responsible solicitors were offering to answer questions.
As far as the Ryan Commission is concerned, the information about the study is extremely limited.
The Ryan Commission said that participation "will be subject to the usual confidentiality requirements".
There is no "usual confidentiality".
This was new territory.
The University College Dublin research represents a new departure.
With a research team engaged, the ability of the Ryan Commission to control confidentiality, or indeed any other aspect of procedure or content, is tenuous.
We believe that many people who were questioned in the research at that time rejected participation out of hand.
The Ryan Commission fails to understand how many people have our files they are held by the Department of Education, the Redress Board, the Ryan Commission, Barnardo's, the archives of the religious institutions, the solicitors who have acted for us, or are acting for us, the psychiatrists and psychotherapists and the courts.
Now they want the University College Dublin to analyse around 400 people who made applications to appear before the Laffoy Confidential Committee but overlook their failure to include people who made applications to appear before the Laffoy Investigation Committee.
We cannot get our medical files from the religious institutions nor can we get the names of our families.
Back in November 2005 Professor Alan Carr, who lead the research team, assured the Ryan Commission that the interview material "will be securely stored at University College Dublin", that details will remain confidential, and that the Human Research Ethics Committee has approved.
The heart of the matter lies in what is to be achieved.
The research will say how the overall group of participants were affected by having lived in an institution, how it affected their psychological adjustment, their quality of life and how individuals coped with the challenges that they faced during their time in the institutions and afterwards.
From the trust that we have built up over a number of years with several men and women who went through the industrial school system we can answer most of those questions.
Furthermore, we can say of that the Ryan Commission is not getting very close to the truth.
We fear the research project will do even less well.
Some leading spokespersons of the abused are disdainful and dismissive of the process altogether.
There is a further compelling reason for doubt about what is being done.
Though it is a long time ago, University College Dublin similar research lost all the research documentation.
This arose at the time of the Kennedy Committee's work, in the late 1960s.
It was done because Ireland faced international disgrace as a result of OECD investigations into our education system.
These showed serious defects in the education levels of people in industrial schools.
Inmates were, of course, not being educated.
They were doing manual work for the Religious Orders, their education - like everything else - being seriously neglected.
Some regard this as the worst of all the abuses.
The University College Dublin researchers at the time knew none of this.
Perhaps Professor Alan Carr will give some thought to his predecessor in the research field, who was Professor of Logic and Psychology at University College Dublin, a Father Eamonn Feichin O'Doherty.
His research is referred to in Appendix F of the Kennedy (1970) Report.
His testimony hinged on the concept that the educational backwardness of industrial school inmates resulted from innate inability, bad blood, family circumstances.
It was not related to the conditions in the institutions.
Such was the Professor of Logic's logic.
Moreover, he blamed early experience in life, not realising that the early life, from the age of two, had been in the industrial schools.
He ignored the prison environment, the constant fear, the brutality and violence, the starvation, the meagre and inadequate clothing.
Instead, it was all bad genes.
This was a piece of National Socialist research.
Current researchers can neither criticise nor defend these assertions because University College Dublin lost all the research material.
We do not think Professor Alan Carr should proceed any further assisting the Ryan Commission until questions have been asked about the project.
Apart from anything else it is appropriate to ask what psychiatric or therapeutic skills are possessed by the "experts" of his team.
We don't know the timescale of the research but we think that the Ryan Commission should bring its work to an end since that work is going nowhere at all.
It is not satisfying many thousands of victims of institutional child abuse.
It is costing a great deal of public money.
Furthermore, it is not getting to the heart of truth.