Child abuse

The results of the nine-year old Irish investigation, released on Wednesday, accuse Roman Catholic priests and nuns of widespread and systematic abuse of thousands of children assigned to their care in special schools, reformatories and orphanages from the 1930s to the 1970s.

A special child abuse commission established by the Irish government in 2000 examined over 100 institutions and industrial schools, which were chiefly run by religious orders and the Department of Education.

The long-awaited 2,600 page report came to the conclusion that sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions for decades and that church officials not only encouraged ritual beatings but also repeatedly shielded pedophiles from arrest.

"A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys," the report said. "Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from."

Victims ignored

Many of the victims had reported the abuse when they were children but their accounts were either deemed incredible or ignored by authorities. Most of the schools were closed in the 1960s and '70s.

However, persistent campaigns by victims and a series of television documentaries and police inquiries in the 1990s led to the creation of the child abuse commission, which was tasked with investigating the allegations.

In 1999, former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern made an unprecedented apology to the victims for Ireland's "collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue."

Compensation has been sought by Irish victims now living in over 30 countries, with 40 percent of claims coming from women. More than half the claimants still live in Ireland, while a third had moved to Britain.

A government redress body running in parallel with the judicial commission has already paid out almost one billion euros ($1.4 billion) in compensation.

nk/dpa/AP/AFP/Reuters

Editor: Nancy Isenson