The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will this morning explain to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse why in May 1999 he apologised on behalf of the Irish people to former residents of industrial schools and reformatories in the State.
He will also explain why he decided to set up the commission itself and to establish a redress scheme for former residents. He is expected to explain how he first became aware of abuse in the institutions as an issue.
The investigation committee, now in its third week of public hearings, has already heard answers to these questions from the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, the former minister for education and science, Dr Michael Woods, officials from both those Departments and the Department of Finance, and from representatives of nine of the 18 religious congregations which managed the residential institutions.
The 18 congregations concerned agreed in 2002 to contribute €128 million to the Government redress fund and were, controversially, granted an indemnity against any further claims in return.
Representatives of the congregations are to appear before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee later this week, probably on Thursday, to help the committee with its investigations into that agreement.
Evidence to date to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has been general and along the lines the Taoiseach will be questioned on this morning.
It is already evident that extant records are few of either child sexual or physical abuse in the institutions, whether at statutory body level or where the religious congregations are concerned. However, there is general admission that the regime in those institutions was regimented and harsh.
Last Friday, however, brought the most significant revelation of the committee hearings to date. Brother David Gibson, northern province leader of the Christian Brothers congregation, disclosed that they had, within the past year, uncovered in archives at their Rome headquarters records of internal trials in 30 cases where brothers were found guilty by the congregation of child sex abuse covering a period from the 1930s to the 1960s.
In no case were State authorities informed, nor was there treatment provided for the children abused, he said.
The archives were taken to Rome in the 1960s when the congregation's headquarters moved. An archivist was employed last year to search the documents, though, as Brother Gibson had told the committee earlier, the brothers in Ireland had been aware of the child abuse problem at least since 1990 and had their own child protection guidelines in place by 1993.
The congregation apologised publicly in March 1998 for the treatment of former residents in institutions run by them.