The Rosminian order will this afternoon be the first religious congregation in Ireland to be questioned publicly before a statutory body about the care of children in residential institutions under their management.
Representatives of the order, which manages such institutions at St Joseph's in Clonmel and at Upton in Cork, will appear before the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, in Dublin.
In her third interim report last January, the former chairwoman of the commission, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, exempted the Rosminian and Presentation orders from her criticisms of religious congregations who she said challenged even matters "of indisputable historic fact".
Brother Edmund Garvey, of the Christian Brothers, said they had "co-operated fully" with the commission and submitted 700 responses to it, "not one of which has been dealt with". Yesterday Brother Garvey said his congregation wished "to state emphatically that it is determined to engage fully with the commission". He was speaking in the context of a decision by the order not to proceed with their Supreme Court appeal against the workings of the commission, scheduled for hearing yesterday.
The order welcomed the statement of commission chairman Mr Justice Sean Ryan on June 16th that its investigation committee would not name individuals against whom allegations of abuse were made, in its final report, with the exception of those convicted in the courts.
They also welcomed Justice Ryan's intention to seek legal changes to explore the role of the courts in sending children to institutions and were pleased they would be consulted on the methodology adopted by the committee in its inquiries with which they would fully co-operate.
They fully agreed victims of abuse should not be subjected to further trauma, if it could be avoided, and would work with the commission to achieve, where possible, reconciliation between abused and abusers.
Yesterday Mr David Doyle, second secretary at the Department of Finance, told the committee his Department had "a fairly limited role" where the State's indemnity deal with religious congregations were concerned - under which the religious contributed $128 million to the Government redress scheme.
He said a Government decision on redress did not put a limit to overall compensation. That would depend on the nature of abuse and the number of cases involved, he said, regardless of which the principle remained the same. "It is not going to undermine the financial stability of the State," he said.
He also told the committee a commission discovery order for documents at the Department, going back to 1936, would be fully executed this week.
The first reference to child sex abuse in Department of Health files was in 1983, not, as reported yesterday, in 1977. There was a first reference to child physical abuse in the 1977 files.
