Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry
legal inquiry
The 2014–2016 Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, often referred to as the HIA Inquiry, is the largest inquiry into historical institutional sexual and physical abuse of children in Northern Ireland legal history. Its remit covers institutions in Northern Ireland that provided residential care for children from 1922 to 1995, but excludes most church-run schools.
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. A typical apology was "Today we, as representatives of the state, say that we are sorry ... that the state's systems failed to protect you from abuse".
History
The inquiry was set up in response to the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 (c. 2 (N.I.)). 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. The cost was estimated at £17–19 million, with 30 people working on the inquiry according to its Frequently Asked Questions as of January 2017. There are provisions for witness support.
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This entry incorporates text from “Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.