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	Abuse Documents to Be Destroyed By John Burke Sunday Business Post May 24, 2009 http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=IRELAND-qqqm=news-qqqid=41990-qqqx=1.asp Tens of thousands of original documents detailing the abuse of children in residential homes are expected to be destroyed by the Ryan Commission. The documents contain evidence taken from victims and witnesses, and admissions from members of religious orders who committed or witnessed acts of sexual and physical crimes. Commission chairman Mr Justice Seán Ryan will meet other inquiry members on Tuesday to consider the fate of the documents, which took a decade to compile from state and Church bodies. Much of the material collated relates to serious allegations of sex crimes which emerged under the commission's discovery process and would not have been the subject of Garda investigations or criminal charges. Informed sources said that the "strong leaning" of the commission members was to order the destruction of all material, for legal reasons. The material cannot be made available to any new inquiry or gardaí. However, The Sunday Business Post has learned that Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has asked the most senior operational commander in the force to review the contents of the Ryan Commission report. Murphy has asked Derek Byrne, Assistant Commissioner in charge of the National Support Service, to determine what new information may have emerged that could result in criminal charges being brought against the religious orders or their members. Byrne will receive a copy of the report in coming days and will report directly back to the commissioner with his findings. There have been repeated calls for people who were sent to state-funded industrial schools and reformatories to be pardoned for crimes that caused them to be sent to the institutions. However, Attorney General Paul Gallagher has told the government that the state would encounter significant problems if it attempted to pardon them, as the vast majority were committed to the institutions on foot of civil, rather than criminal, orders. Gallagher was responding to a request from just ice minister Dermot Ahern.
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