Finding Help

Residential Institutions Redress Board

The Redress Board was set up under the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 to make fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to state regulation or inspection.

Visit the Redress Board web site.

Tracing Family

The Commission has been informed by Barnardos that, with the support of the Department of Education and Science, it is expanding the independent information, advice and counselling service it has provided since 1977 for persons separated from their families of origin.

The primary focus of the expanded service will be to support persons raised in residential care to access their personal records and in their subsequent decision making. The Commission is pleased to be able to bring this development to the attention of persons affected by its work.

For more information, please visit https://www.barnardos.ie/our-services/origins-service.

Download an information brief issued by Barnardos in PDF

National Counselling Service (NCS)

The HSE National Counselling Service, established in 2000, has a proven track record of providing consistent, quality, counselling and psychotherapy to a wide range of clients, https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/mental-health-services/national-counselling-service/.  

The NCS is available free of charge across the country to residents in the Republic of Ireland. 

The aim of the NCS is to support clients to improve their quality of life and reduce their psychological distress through the provision of evidence-based, professional, client centred counselling.

The NCS employs qualified, accredited and experienced Counsellor/Therapists.

Face to face, counselling by phone and online video counselling are available,

NCS Services

Counselling and Psychotherapy for Adults who experienced childhood abuse or neglect (CaPA)

The CaPA service for Adults who experienced childhood abuse or neglect provides trauma-informed counselling/therapy from NCS centres nationwide.

Read more about CaPA here.

Some documents in the website are in PDF format. How to download PDF files.