Neerkol Residents LED the Way in Giving Evidence in Forde Inquiry

By Jacquie Mackay
ABC Brisbane
April 15, 2015

http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2015/04/neerkol-residents-led-the-way-in-giving-evidence-in-forde-inquiry.html


The Royal Commission into Child Abuse is currently holding it's first regional public hearing here in Central Queensland looking into what happened at St Joseph's Orphanage Neerkol.

However this isn't the first time that there has been information taken about this orphanage - 17 years ago former Queensland Governor Leneen Forde took information from more than 300 people and looked at the histories of more than

150 orphanages and detention centres for ther inquiry into institutional child abuse.

Her report made 42 recommendations, 41 of which were adopted by the Queensland Government.

Leneen Forde says that the Forde inquiry was the first real opportunity for these former orphanage residents to give their testimony and has paved the way for such information to come out at a national level in this Royal Commission.