Survivors of Institional abuse have criticised the CEO of the support scheme set up to help survivors over controversial remarks made last year.
Caranua's Mary Higgins withdrew her comments unreservedly after saying "These people are damaged. The hole in them cannot be filled by what we do unfortunately".
A new survivor led group - R I S N - says they will no longer be gagged or silenced and have spoken publicly about these comments and how they affected them.
Co-founder William Gorry says all survivors deserve to be supported and try and achieve happiness.
Residential Institutional Survivors Network (RISN) has secured consultation talks with the Department of Education which are due to get underway early this year.
It is the first survivor led organisation in the UK and Ireland is providing a new platform for people to have their voices heard.
They've launched a website for people to get in touch https://risn.ie/ and are hoping more survivors come forward.
The number of known survivors of institutional abuse is around 15,000 but Willam Gorry thinks the real figure is closer to 22,000.
