With regard to the letter Far Better Ways To Care For Children by Richard Wexler (May 12), as far as it goes, the Commissioner for Children was not rationalising institutionalisation but simply saying that, in this circumstance, between keeping the same children in the same residential home and distributing them among several residential homes, the first option was to be preferred.

From her public statements made to date on this subject, it is amply clear that the Commissioner is all in favour of other forms of care (familial, adoption and fostering) over institutionalisation.