Career

She is most notable for presiding over the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse

Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is one of a range of measures introduced by the Irish Government to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children from 1936 onwards. It is commonly known in Ireland as the Ryan Commission , after its chair, Justice Seán Ryan...

, known as the "Laffoy Commission", an inquiry into child abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

, before causing controversy by resigning as its chair.

In her letter of resignation from that Commission of 2 September 2003, Ms. Justice Laffoy outlined her belief that the actions of the Government and the Department of Education had frustrated her efforts and had slowed the commission's work. The commission was then chaired in 2003-09 by Judge Ryan

Seán Ryan (Irish judge)

Seán Ryan is a judge of the Irish High Court.As a barrister, he was Senior Counsel to the inquiry into abuse in the Catholic diocese of Ferns , and was chairman of the Compensation Advisory Committee that prepared guidelines on compensation to be paid to abuse survivors at the Residential...

.

Main points contained in the resignation letter of Justice Laffoy

• That the Government's decision to engage in a second phase of a review had effectively put the substantive work of the Commission's Investigation Committee on hold.
• That the only clear inference to be taken from correspondence received from the Department of Education and Science was that the Government had decided that the Commission would not implement its statutory mandate.
• That the Commission had never been properly enabled by the Government to fulfill satisfactorily the functions conferred on it by the Oireachtas
  Oireachtas
  The Oireachtas , sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the "national parliament" or legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:*The President of Ireland*The two Houses of the Oireachtas :**Dáil Éireann...
  
  .
• That range of factors over which the Commission had no control, produced a real and pervasive sense of powerlessness, including:
  • the two-year delay on the issue of compensation for survivors of abuse eventually dealt with in the Residential Institutions Redress Act enacted in April 2002;
  • the two-year delay in the payment of legal costs of persons involved in the process eventually dealt with in the Act;
  • the Government handling of requests for the provision of adequate resources to enable the Investigation Committee to carry out its remit with reasonable expedition when the volume of allegations became known;
  • the Government decision in December 2002 to review the Commission's mandate which was to be completed in February 2003 but which has not yet been published;
  • the Government decision of December 2002 to agree in principle to the provision of additional resources was made contingent on the outcome of the review, and so had proved meaningless.

• That the cumulative effect of those factors effectively negatived the guarantee of independence conferred on the Commission and militated against it being able to perform its statutory functions.
• That it was not possible to deduce the nature of the functions which were likely to be conferred on the Commission post review, save that they would be substantially different from its then functions.
• That it was not possible to predict whether the chairperson might be precluded from continuing her work on the Investigation Committee or to predict the duration of the review.
• That the investigations which the Commission had conducted up to the time of her resignation might transpire to be redundant or incorrectly focused in the light of a future unknown mandate.
• That to abide, without protest, the outcome of the further radical review then proposed, would be a complete abrogation of the independence which the Oireachtas
  Oireachtas
  The Oireachtas , sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the "national parliament" or legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:*The President of Ireland*The two Houses of the Oireachtas :**Dáil Éireann...
  
  intended the Commission to enjoy and would undermine the credibility of the chairperson.
• That the ongoing uncertainty was detrimental to the interests of the persons who alleged that they suffered abuse and had the potential to give rise to unfairness and injustice toward individuals against whom allegations had been made.
• That there was a risk that a Commission which worked first to one mandate and then to a substantially different one, would leave itself open to legal challenge.