The Inquiry was set up in response to the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse Act (Northern Ireland) 2013. Following a request to extend its timescale, the Inquiry’s Report was delivered to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (who had no powers to change it) on 6 January 2017, shortly before the deadline of 18 January, and published on 20 January. On 11 March 2022 ministers from the five main political parties in Northern Ireland and six abusing institutions made statements of apology in the Northern Ireland Assembly but the victims of this vile abuse of children rejected the apology.
A brief history of HIA inquiry.
In Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry started in January 2014. It was the largest inquiry in UK legal history into sexual and physical abuse in certain institutions that were in charge of children from 1922 to 1995. The De La Salle Brothers and the Sisters of Nazareth admitted early in the inquiry to physical and sexual abuse of children in institutions in Northern Ireland that they controlled, and issued an apology to victims. A 2017 report also stated that the local police, who had also poorly investigated claims of sex abuse at the non-Catholic Kincora Boys’ Home, had played a role in assisting the local Catholic officials in covering up reported sexual abuse activity at four Catholic-run homes for boys in the Belfast area and that these four homes had contained the highest level of reported sex abuse of all the 22 homes which were investigated. The Inquiry was set up in response to the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse Act (Northern Ireland) 2013. Following a request to extend its timescale, the Inquiry’s Report was delivered to the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister on 6 January 2017, shortly before the deadline of 18 January, and published on 20 January. The cost was estimated at £17-19m, with 30 people working on the enquiry according to its Frequently Asked Questions as of January 2017. There are provisions for witness support.
The Inquiry had statutory powers to compel witnesses living in Northern Ireland to appear before it and evidence held in Northern Ireland to be given to it; to take evidence under oath, and to be held in public except where necessary to protect individuals’ privacy. Inquiry Rule 14(3) does not allow any explicit or significant criticism of a person unless the chairperson has sent them a warning letter, with a reasonable opportunity to respond. The Inquiry concluded its hearings on 8 July 2016 and released its report on 20 January 2017.
Failure of State to provide justice to the victims.
Victims of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland have been told they were failed by the state during a long-awaited public apology at Stormont. The state has accepted that it has put a deaf ear towards the wailings of the abuse victims. Survivors watched on in the Assembly chamber as a minute’s silence was held before five ministers, representing each of the main Stormont parties, offered their apology on behalf of the Government. Some survivors, about 80 of whom were present in the assembly chamber, left while those speeches were being made. The public apology was recommended in the final report of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI), which was published more than five years ago.
There were many reasons which can be cited why did the State ignore the victims’ abuses and didn’t even hear their complaints. Religious and political are two main reasons, as the church was involved in it and the other was the political interest of the GB. An inquiry into institutional sexual and physical abuse in Northern Ireland institutions that were in charge of children from 1922 to 1995, Module 1 investigated the Sisters of Nazareth Homes in Derry (27 January 2014 to 29 May 2014), Module 2 the Child Migrant Programme which forcibly sent children from NI institutions including Nazareth House to Australia, where some were maltreated and exploited and the State was all aware of it but did nothing.
Is apology enough for the victims?
Ministers and representatives of six institutions at the centre of the scandal on Friday, March 11 2022 issued a long-awaited statement saying sorry for what was described as “vile” and “unimaginable” abuse carried out for more than 70 years. Five religious institutions and one secular body offered profound apologies and regret to victims. The representatives from De La Salle, Sisters of Nazareth, Sisters of St Louis and the Good Shepherd Sisters, as well as Barnardo’s and the Irish Church Missions, admitted that words could only do so much to overcome the pain felt by victims over successive decades.
“We neglected you, rejected you, we made you feel unwanted,” said Education Minister Michelle McIlveen, from the Democratic Unionist Party. “It was not your fault. The state let you down.”
The Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom with complex British Protestant and Irish Catholic divisions, abuse was recorded at institutions run by Catholic and Protestant religious groups and the Barnardo’s children’s charity. The formal apology came more than five years after it was recommended by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. The years-long inquiry found shocking levels of physical, sexual and mental abuse at institutions run by the state, churches and charities between 1922, when Northern Ireland was founded as a state, and 1995.
But the apology was rejected by the victims, some of them were happy that justice was served but the majority of the victims were angry and therefore rejected the apology. It was inhumane and carelessness of the State who made these victims suffer for all these years. The cruel state and this apology cannot bring back the childhood of these victims. There were also religious orders for the State to pay compensation for the victims but it also can’t be enough. It is very hard to comprehend what it feels like to get abused sexually, psychologically and physically in childhood. Upon this, Conor Murphy, the finance minister, said “no amount of financial redress can ever make up for the suffering.”
Conclusion.
The Northern Ireland government issued a formal apology on Friday to people who were abused in orphanages and children’s homes, telling them that “the state let you down.” The formal apology came more than five years after it was recommended by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. The years-long inquiry found shocking levels of physical, sexual and mental abuse at institutions run by the state, churches and charities between 1922, when Northern Ireland was founded as a state, and 1995. Ministers from all five political parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly read out apologies to survivors gathered at the Stormont government buildings near Belfast. Representatives of six institutions where the abuse took place also publicly said sorry to those who were harmed. Northern Ireland launched an investigation following similar work in the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, where four state-funded investigations from 2004 to 2011 concluded that the Catholic Church engaged in a systematic cover-up of child abuse by its officials for decades.
The victims who appeared in the assembly to hear the formal apology by the State rejected the apology by saying that “this apology is not enough, these words cannot bring our childhood back and all the sufferings we have gone through.” The religious orders directed the state to pay compensation to these victims, although no amount of financial redress can ever make up for the suffering.
