Kircubbin home set for inquiry

Kircubbin home set for inquiry

11 September 2013

RUBANE House will be one of the first children’s homes to be investigated in a major inquiry into institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.

The Kircubbin boys’ home, which was run by the De La Salle Brothers, will be investigated along with two homes run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry when the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry opens in January.

The home closed in the early 1980s after it became the centre of an extensive RUC abuse investigation, and the De La Salle order has since made a number of out-of-court payments to men who claimed they were abused while at the home.

Rubane House, also known as Echlinville House, is now in private ownership.

The 13 institutions to be investigated in the inquiry were announced this week, having been whittled down from an expected 35.

Retired Judge Sir Anthony Hart, chairman of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, said at a public meeting in Belfast this week that investigations into a number of institutions had to be ped due to insufficient allegations.

The statutory probe was set up by the Northern Ireland Executive to investigate institutions run

by the state and church and also those owned by the private sector or voluntary bodies from 1922 to 1995.

To date 363 people have contacted the inquiry and later this year a team of lawyers will travel to Australia to take evidence from a further 120 people who were shipped out from Northern Ireland care homes.

Local abuse victim Sam Adair, who has spoken extensively of his experiences in Rubane House, said he was glad the institution would shortly be under the spotlight.

“The difficulty will be standing up in open court but I do not have anything to hide,” he said.

Mr. Adair said he would not be giving his evidence to the inquiry anonymously, as was his right, and repeated his call for local victims to come forward to the inquiry before it was too late.

“If you do not have an application in by the end of November it does not matter what your case is,” he said. “If you do not have an application in to these people you have lost your chance.”

However, Mr. Adair has also expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of the inquiry. He said he was disappointed that the inquiry was not focused on taking abusers to court. He also believes taking the inquiry to Australia is a waste of money.

“I think all this Australian talk about people on the other side of the world is a diversion,” he said. “We need to deal with Northern Ireland which has long been a cover-up state.”

A deadline for anyone wishing to contact the inquiry has been set for November 29. The panel expect to present their findings by January 2016.