A government-funded office and phone-line service is to be established for survivors of clerical physical and sexual abuse. It will be run by the Alliance for the Healing of Institutional Abuse and will provide advice on finding appropriate counselling and on the legal avenues open to survivors.
Announcing the government funding yesterday, Ms Bernadette Fahy, counselling psychologist and author of Freedom Of Angels, said details of its location and phone number would be issued as soon as possible.
The alliance had been seeking Government assistance with funding and organising the help it offers for several months.
Particularly since the screening of the RTE documentary, States Of Fear, in April it has been inundated with calls. Many of these were from victims who were speaking about the abuse for the first time.
While the Government has established a Commission on Institutional Abuse, Ms Joe Baker, wife of singer Don Baker who featured in States Of Fear, said the alliance wants the Government to "put its acknowledgement into practice, and provide the services this group of people needs".
She also called for a free-phone number to help former institution residents trace their relatives and for immediate access to the records of young people who died while in the care of an institution.
At yesterday's announcement was Ms Christina Noble, founder of the Christina Noble Children's International Foundation and a leading human rights activist for children. Raised by the Sisters of Mercy in Clifden, Co Galway, she called for the speedy implementation of a Government commitment to alter the statute of limitations, making it easier for survivors to take civil cases against their abusers.
The emotional effects of sexual abuse do not disappear, she said.
"It affects your weight. It affects your health. Physically, psychologically it has already left these young people with lack of growth and development and turned them into crippled adults, who have become and will become a drain on human resources . . . Then they are punished again, labelled lazy, unproductive and a headache for the State.
"I believe the Government should have the balls to stand up and say `Our predecessors f****d up.' "
Mr Michael O'Brien, a victim of abuse at Artane Industrial School, said the church had failed to make individual contact with any victim of abuse and added that many victims would be afraid to call its free help-lines.
"Mistrust has been beaten into them," he said. He also said counselling services in rural areas were inadequate.
