Ms Alice Coughlan:

I went to the commission and I gave my story. I went for help. My way of getting over what happened was that I blocked my mind off from it for 40 years. I went on and never trusted anyone and never allowed anyone to have control of me again. That was the way I coped. When my mother died in 2015, I went for help. I went in front of the commission. We talk about this aspect, but I went in front of the commission and I have the letter here. If somebody wishes to pass that on to everybody, they more than likely can.

A year later, to the day, I was offered counselling. When I wrote to the judge who was the chair of the commission, I received a three-line letter back. Would that encourage people who might have been hiding things for their entire lives to come forward and talk? There must be an agency. I refer to an agency that was completely independent, so that someone could go into a hospital in Cork or Galway, for example, and give the relevant information and family history to a social worker. That is what I wanted in the forum. I refer to a situation where a person's family might know nothing about a situation, and that person being able to go in and give the medical history-----