The state-funded institutions in Ireland were a "secret and closed world run on fear", the decade-long report concluded. However, no new prosecutions are expected.
The commission's five-volume, 2,500-page report describes a Victorian model of childcare that survived from 1914 through most of the 20th century and will further erode the moral authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
It says a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and "all those run for boys", adding: "Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from."
Sex abuse was endemic in boys' homes and common in girls' schools - with predatory abuse from male employees and even visitors - but the Department of Education did little to stop it and was "completely deferential" to the religious orders. ....
Dr. Alan Cairns | 8/3/2009
