The Minister for Education has said that the last government was guilty of an error of judgement when it promised victims of child abuse that all allegations which they wanted investigated would be probed by the Child Abuse Commission.
Noel Dempsey made the comments when accepting a recommendation from Judge Mary Laffoy's successor, Judge Sean Ryan, that the commission's investigation should not be obliged to hear each and every allegation of abuse.
Instead, he recommends giving discretion to his team on which cases to hear after making a preliminary examination of documents. The Government also accepts Judge Ryan's recommendation that he should be allowed to make findings about particular allegations of abuse.
Ms Laffoy resigned after accusing the Government of failing to adequately resource the commission which, after three years, had succeeded in investigating only dozens of complaints of abuse out of some 3,000, mostly directed against priests, brothers and nuns.
It is understood that a nine-chapter Ryan review puts much of the blame for the delays on the legislation of April 2000 establishing the commission, which the judge says asked it to do too much.
He also strongly supports his predecessor's practice of issuing interim reports. Justice Laffoy completed her last such report a month ago, which will be published in about a fortnight.
