Irish Government Announces Terms of Reference for the Commission of Investigation into the Handling of Child Sexual Abuse in Schools

The Scoping Inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders, published in 2024, found that there were 2,395 allegations of sexual abuse in respect of 308 schools run by religious orders. These allegations were made in respect of 884 distinct alleged abusers between 1927 and 2013. Following the Scoping Inquiry, the government approved the establishment of a Commission of Investigation into allegations of sexual abuse which will be chaired by Mr Justice Michael McGrath.

Most recently, the Terms of Reference of the upcoming Commission of Investigation have been published by the Government which outline the details of the investigation. These can be read in full here: Terms_of_Reference_for_the_Commission.pdf

Investigation

The Commission will investigate:

1. The failures to treat concerns of child sexual abuse in a manner which adequately protected children

2. The causes of and responsibility for such failures

3. The handling by An Garda Síochána, the Health Service Executive (or its relevant successor and predecessor organisations) and the Department of Education of concerns of child sexual abuse reported to them.

The Commission is directed to report to the Minister for Education and Youth on a) the impact of sexual abuse upon survivors and b) the learnings for the future in relation to child protection.

Commission’s Scope and Approach

Investigating the failure to adequately treat a concern of child sexual abuse will include circumstances where actions taken, or not taken, resulted in:

1. A failure to prevent harm to children

2. The non-reporting of such concerns to the appropriate authority

3. The concealment of child sexual abuse

In assessing the adequacy of the handling of the concern of child sexual abuse, the commission should have regard to a number of relevant considerations.

The Commission has five years to complete its investigation. Considering the scale of the issue, it will adopt a purposive sampling approach to select cases of concern regarding child sexual abuse.

Survivor Engagement

The investigation will be survivor-centred and will provide an opportunity for survivors to come forward and share their stories on a confidential basis. A Survivor Engagement Programme will be established to hear anonymous accounts from survivors regarding the impact of sexual abuse they experienced in schools.

This process will seemingly be non-adversarial and non-legal in nature. An anonymised summary report will be provided to the Chair of the Commission to reflect the impact of the survivors’ experiences. This suggests that the opportunities to give evidence to the chair of the inquiry directly will be extremely limited.

What does this mean for survivors?

Following the announcement of a Commission of Investigation, the Government has yet to provide further details of the Financial Redress Scheme or how any future scheme will be funded. Clarifying these matters is essential to ensuring accountability.

Unfortunately, many survivors of abuse in Ireland that we represent have had their chances of obtaining answers through the Courts scuppered in recent years due to prohibitive limitation periods which prevent survivors from taking legal action for abuse that was perpetrated decades earlier.

The upcoming Commission of Investigation offers those survivors a chance to have their voices heard and to obtain some level of closure by having these issues comprehensively and transparently investigated.

In parallel, the Government should promptly establish a redress scheme, with financial contributions from the religious orders involved.