A scoping report on historical abuse at boarding and day schools run by religious orders will be given to survivors first, the Minister for Education Norma Foley has promised.
In a letter to survivors on Wednesday, Ms Foley said she intends to publish the report in the autumn but that her intention was to make it available “to those who participated in the scoping inquiry first”.
The report is understood to recommend a statutory inquiry be set up to examine the sexual abuse of potentially thousands of children.
The leaders of the Government parties discussed the issue on Tuesday night with Ms Foley, whose department commissioned the scoping report by senior counsel Mary O’Toole last year.
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The report, which runs to more than 700 pages, is likely to be published in September, after which a statutory inquiry is expected to be established.
In her letter, Ms Foley said the report sets out the experiences described by survivors, adding “it is difficult to put into words how disturbing and abhorrent these accounts are”.
“I have been deeply moved by the courage of everyone who has come forward,” she said.
The Fianna Fáil TD said a process of engagement with the Office of the Attorney General commenced on June 7th, and “that process has been ongoing in parallel to the study of the contents of the report”.
“Following consultation with colleagues in Government, and further engagement with the Office of the Attorney General, I intend to publish the report in the autumn,” Ms Foley said.
“While the report will be of great interest to the public and the media, it is my intention that the full report will be made available to those who participated in the scoping inquiry first, before it is published more generally. It is likely that there may be media coverage of some of the key points of the report, but it is my intention that the actual report itself will be given to you before its full contents are made public. The scoping inquiry team will be in touch in this regard.”
The scoping inquiry was instituted last year by Ms Foley after allegations of sexual abuse at Blackrock College in Dublin were made by a number of past pupils.
The allegations first emerged when two brothers, David and Mark Ryan, spoke publicly of being sexually abused by priests at Blackrock College and its affiliate junior school, Willow Park. Both schools were run by the Spiritan congregation, formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers.
The brothers first spoke about being sexually abused as boys in the South Dublin secondary school in an RTÉ radio documentary, Blackrock Boys, in 2022. They discovered each other’s abuse only in 2002, many years after it took place.
The documentary led to a wave of revelations and hundreds of survivors reporting they were also abused as boys in schools run by the Spiritans, as well as other congregations who ran day and boarding schools in the past.
It later emerged that more than 140 people reported incidences of child sexual abuse involving 18 abusers to gardaí investigating such allegations at the schools in South Dublin.
The scoping inquiry was set up by the Department of Education to advise the Government on the nature of the issue and the possible next steps. It was broadened to include allegations of abuse in religious-run boarding and day schools, and received more than 200 submissions. It is understood the report features schools runs by many different religious orders.
The report was delivered to Ms Foley in early June.
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