Ms Justice Mary Laffoy's letter of resignation as chairwoman of the child abuse commission is highly critical of Government actions and delays which it says have hindered the commission's work.
Ministers yesterday decided to withhold the politically damaging five-page letter until the Government has prepared a detailed rebuttal of the judge's criticisms. However, according to informed sources last night, the letter says the failure of the Department of Education to provide the commission with essential documentation for a long period of time frustrated her work and made it difficult for the commission to fulfil its mandate.
The judge's letter, sent on Tuesday to the Secretary of the Government, also reflects her belief that other Government actions as well as the behaviour of some religious orders have slowed the commission's work.
Last night, the former minister for education, Dr Michael Woods, said Ms Justice Laffoy "was given everything the Department had". He was surprised at the resignation.
The unexpected political mess dominated yesterday's Cabinet meeting as victims' groups and Opposition parties blamed the Government and demanded the immediate release of the judge's letter. The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, is under renewed political pressure to show quickly that he is blameless in the affair.
The fact that Ms Justice Laffoy wrote her resignation letter within hours of Mr Dempsey announcing a further review of the commission's work led to Opposition claims that he had precipitated the resignation by failing to consult Ms Justice Laffoy as to his plans.
While Mr Dempsey said the slow progress of the commission had led to this review, Ms Justice Laffoy last April publicly blamed Mr Dempsey's own Department for much of this slowness. Mr Dempsey insisted yesterday he had consulted Ms Justice Laffoy six to eight weeks ago about this new review. When it was put to him that the judge's letter accuses the Department of Education of failing to co-operate, he said: "I don't know the source of your information on that. If Justice Laffoy says that, then we will deal with that. At the moment the letter will be dealt with by the Government over a period of time."
Dr Woods, who introduced the Bill putting the commission on a statutory basis, told The Irish Times that there were difficulties involved in getting it up and running, but they were all overcome.
He understood the commission was given all the documents the Department had. "There might have been documents where there was a legal constraint. That arose later."