The Presentation Order who ran the Greenmount Industrial School in Cork city have repeated an apology to those who may have been abused in their care.
After the Greenmount Industrial School was closed in 1959, several allegations of physical and sexual abuse were made by past pupils.
A representative for the Presentation Brothers was cross-examined for over two-and-a-half hours at the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse today.
Brother Denis Minihan afterwards insisted the allegations relating to the 1940s and 1950s were never proven.
He told the commission that he agreed corporal punishment was used to excess during the period, and added that an allegation of sexual abuse in 1955 which led to the resignation of one brother and the relocation of another senior brother, was not talked about among members of the order.
Brother Minihan said he had no personal knowledge of abuse of any nature taking place at the school during the five months he lived there in 1953.
He said he remembered the school as a happy and fun place despite the fact that law and order prevailed.
The brother said he did not accept evidence given during a previous private session of the commission's hearings that a strap with coins embedded on it was used to beat the boys.
The commission heard that an inquiry was ordered into the 1955 allegation of sexual abuse. A Canon was appointed to hold the investigation, however there is no documentation available as to the outcome of the inquiry.
Brother Minihan said the matter was not talked about generally, and if it was it was vague and couched in language which was hard to understand.
