Elaine Byrne: Foster care abuses are not historic

"Didn’t put a name on it because I didn’t know what it was."

These are the devastating words of Rachel Barry when she told RTÉ’s Prime Time Investigates about the moment she confided in her mother about being repeatedly raped by Keith Burke in a Galway foster care home. She was 11 years old. The abuse began when she was nine.

This horrific case revealed how some Irish children appear to be treated ...