THE CHILD abuse commission has apologised to a survivor of Goldenbridge industrial school for naming her in its final report. The commission followed a strict policy of anonymity in relation to both the victims and the perpetrators of abuse in church-run industrial schools.
However, the woman is named in a footnote to a sub-report, which details her committal to an industrial school in 1935.
A spokeswoman for the commission said the naming of the woman was inadvertent but insisted no breach of confidentiality was involved because she was not an applicant before the commission.
The woman, who is 76 years old and living in London, told The Irish Times she was ‘‘shocked and traumatised’’ by her identification in the report. ‘‘They think of us as lesser beings so it doesn’t seem to matter if our rights are breached.’’
The commission has invited the woman to come to Dublin to meet the commission chairman, Judge Sean Ryan, but because she cares for a partner with dementia she says she is not in a position to ‘‘drop everything’’ and come over.
The footnote describes how the woman was committed at the age of 23 months by a District Court judge who found that she was destitute. She remained in the industrial school system until she was 16 years old.
In 2003, she says she received 31 letters written by her parents to her during the 1940s but which were withheld from her by the school.
The woman says she is seeking to have her criminal record expunged.
The case has angered survivors’ groups, who have contrasted it with the treatment of convicted abusers mentioned in the report. ‘‘While perpetrators of abuse are protected in the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse an innocent person who was institutionalised as a baby is clearly identified,’’ said campaigner and author Paddy Doyle.
According to the footnote, the Department of Justice rejects the woman’s claim that she has a criminal record because, it says, she was not convicted of any offence and could not have been, because of her age.
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