It is over four years since the Taoiseach apologised to the victims of abuse in residential institutions and promised that the State would make amends. The Government then set up the Laffoy Commission, intended as the centrepiece of the State's restitution to the victims.
Its basis was flawed from the outset, in that it was set up under the sponsorship of the Department of Education and Science, the very Department that had presided over the institutions under examination. The files on State supervision of these institutions lay in the vaults of the Department and some of its past and present officials had been involved in dealing with the religious orders that ran the institutions.
But this was also the Department which the commission had to ask for resources, both financial and human, in order to do its work. There was obviously a conflict of interest between the Department in its capacity as the sponsor, and as one of the bodies under investigation.
There were other difficulties, especially in relation to resources. The early days of the commission were bogged down in wrangles between it and the Department over provision for legal representation for victims and the setting up of a compensation tribunal, which prevented the victims from participating. Ms Justice Laffoy felt compelled to go public with her dissatisfaction with the Department's foot-dragging on these issues.
This was not the only difficulty. Last April she made public her dissatisfaction with the Department's delays in making essential documents available to the commission. It rings rather hollow for the Minister for Education to say that the investigation committee of the commission was taking a long time when a major cause of delay was the failure of his own Department to produce vital documents. The work of this committee - which is charged with the vital task of not only reporting on what happened, but making recommendations to ensure nothing like it happens again - was effectively publicly dismissed by the Minister two days ago. This left Ms Justice Laffoy with little alternative but to resign.
The future for the vital work undertaken by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse now looks bleak. It is hard to imagine who would want to take on the task of running it given the circumstances in which its present chairwoman has resigned. Meanwhile, many hundreds of hurt and vulnerable people are now in limbo. Having steeled themselves to engage in this process, made initial statements, and being prepared to meet their alleged abusers in this forum, they now find that the committee conducting the inquiry has been suspended.
The only slim hope is that, even now, the Government might go back to the drawing board, provide the commission with a sponsoring body which is not itself accused, ask Ms Justice Laffoy to resume her office with the proviso that the concerns she outlined in her resignation letter will be fully met, and guarantee the full co-operation with the commission of all Government institutions.