Bertie Ahern's apology to those people in educational institutions provided two key things to people that have been cited as helping to heal victims of abuse . Firstly acknowledgement by the state at the highest level that it had made serious mistakes and errors in the past which had damaged its own citizens . Secondly it also provided partial closure to those victims that had been affected by abuse in that the state had apologised for it's role. Given that these two things were provided had helped , why is the prime minister Gordon Brown not providing things that could help heal a wound that has yet to heal for a lot of people affected.^[1]

1. ^ Matthew Huggins, Care Matters Partnership article

Aside from the Baby P scandal which happened outside of care the UK has had a significant amount of scandals happening across the UK. Some of which have attracted large amounts of conspiracies about secret service involvement such as the Kincora Boys Scandal^[1].This" rel="nofollow">http://www.missingpersons-ireland.freepress-freespeech.com/archive-kincorascandal.htm]].This was a child abuse scandal that occurred at a boys home in the 1980's where a large amount of child abuse was discovered to have occurred for a number of years . Although people were sentenced to time imprisonment , given the scale of the abuse and lack of oversight shouldn't there be an apology acknowledging the victims of this and other more recent incidents.^[2]

1. ^ Cairns Jim "The Kincora Scandal" ^ Wikipedia "Kincora Boys' Home" Accessed 27.05.09 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kincora_Boys%27_Home

Even though Gordon Brown may not have been around for all of the time abuse has happened in care, he is head of the government and legislature. This means although power may have been delegated down to the various officials in the care system, the responsibility has not and ulitmately lies with him.

There is a time honoured tradition of leaders of states, organisations etc apologising for the mistakes wrongful actions committed by those institutions in the past. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised on behalf of Parliament for the treatment of Australian Aborgines including those of the Stolen Generation in February 2008.^[1]. Pope John Paul also apologised countless time including for abuse committed by the church priests even though he was not directly involved.^[2]

1. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/apology/text.htm
2. ^ "Pope sends first e-mail apology" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1671540.stm