THE Sisters of Mercy have released, through a media consultant, a list of names of former pupils willing to tell positive stories about their childhoods in orphanages.
The congregation has also said it would welcome and would co operate fully with an independent inquiry into the alleged abuse of children in their care in the 1950s.
While the order believes the decision of so many to speak out is "good", it also says the media's "uncritical" acceptance of the allegations is responsible for what might be the destruction of the Mercy Sisters' reputation during a time of intense trauma.
This use of a media consultant seems to be part of a more proactive campaign by the sisters to counter images of alleged child abuse at Goldenbridge Orphanage in the 1950s contained in the TV drama documentary Dear Daughter, screened two weeks ago.
"The demand to meet one particular sister is equivalent to trial without charge and that is not to take away from the fact that people have been hurt," said Sister Helena O'Donoghue, spokeswoman for the order.
It is understood some key people giving evidence to the Sisters of Mercy on alleged abuse at Goldenbridge have done so in the presence of Mr Ger Crowley, an expert on institutional abuse by professionals and a senior social worker in the Mid Western Health board.
Mr Crowley, who participated in the Madonna House inquiry and also in the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital inquiry in Drogheda, would make no comment last night on whether he was involved.
After hearing testimony from former Goldenbridge pupils, Sister Helena said she believed that while the reality of their pain could not be questioned, "we need to look at the issue of recall and how hurt manifests itself and how complications such as the hurt of family rejection work".
She said that as a society, we needed to look at why we gave so much freedom to adults during the 1950s and 1960s without challenging how the child would eventually come to interpret its parents' rejection, which had a profound impact on the child's psyche.
Much psychological and psychiatric research work needed to be done, she said, on the effect of rejection by families and how this interrelated with both painful memories and imagination.
There was no doubt, she added, that corporal punishment was a fact of life in those days and accepted widely even in family life.
How this punishment, when taken to excess, was perceived and dealt with could be affected by one's earliest childhood experiences of rejection by parents.
On the issue of how the order would pay for counselling for at least 300 adult survivors who have contacted the helpline, Sister Helena said that other congregations would contribute and that the council of religious superiors had become involved.