Hmm, buggering little boys?
People should perhaps find out more about this before launching into the usual tired “pedophile priest” chants. Even the report is forced to admit that the sexual abuse in these reform schools was committed, in general, by the boys against each other, which is something that is common in all (non-Catholic) prison institutions and, in fact, even in upper class (non-Catholic) British boarding schools. The authorities do actually seem to have removed any brothers (these were Christian Brothers schools) who were preying upon the boys, and the complaint was that they would remove them and assign them to some other activity rather than turning them over to the police because the order treated it as a sin rather than a crime.
As for the brutality, that was common at any institution in the 1930s and 1940s, and while the religious orders should have acted with standards that were higher than those around them, everybody at that time thought that severe corporal punishment was good for erring young people and would set them straight. Maybe it did; most of the people who are complaining seem to have gone on to live productive lives in the intervening 60 or 70 years, until the lure of lawsuit money encouraged them to remember their severe trauma...
The report was developed after interview 1090 victims and ranged over 86 years. This is (if the figure of over 30,000 students attending these schools is correct)less than 4% of the students who were in these schools. Also the term abuse ranges from severe physical beatings which lead to permanent damage to what was once routine corporal punishments in schools such as paddling. The sexual abuse too can mean rape or fondling.
This does not excuse any of the behaviors. But putting things into perspective might help put a more realistic view on the claim this problem was endemic. Also in interviewing former students and relying mostly on their memory of events how can the interviewers be certain time has not altered those memories?