IN SEPTEMBER 2023, as children across the country returned to school, Ireland was once again brought face to face with our shameful legacy of institutional child abuse.

The scoping inquiry into sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders identified 308 schools where nearly 2,400 instances of alleged abuse took place. A shocking level of abuse, we know it is the tip of the iceberg.

Again and again, brave survivors have come forward to disclose that they were abused. Shining an important light into a dark corner of Irish society, they have exposed horrors that should never have been allowed to happen.

We know that abuse was widespread in religious-run schools; survivors have lived with this fact for decades. Most Irish people my age or older will know someone who was directly affected. The scoping inquiry, the latest reckoning with that recent history, outlined the extent of the abuse.

For anyone who reads it, particular passages will haunt you. For me, the concentration of abuse in special schools sticks in my mind. Behind each statistic lie thousands of childhoods cruelly betrayed by those in positions of trust and........

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