On 11 March, 2022, five ministers stood up one by one in the Northern Ireland assembly chamber, and spoke. With conviction, and in sombre tones, the ministers – one from each party in the NI executive – delivered a public apology to victims and survivors who, as children, had suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of institutions across the country, between 1922 and 1995.
It was a long-awaited and highly anticipated occasion – the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, led by Sir Anthony Hart, had been set up in 2012. He reported in 2017 but survivors had to wait five years to hear the apology because the Northern Ireland assembly had been suspended.
