Monthly Archives: April 2009

Turning a blind eye to institutional abuse

Tuesday April 14 2009 -Irish Independent

Institutional abuse and neglect is something we associate with the past, with that ‘Hidden Ireland’ in which a deeply conservative quasi-religious ethos held sway.

An Ireland where children were sent to frightening industrial schools for stealing apples and single mothers could find themselves detained in virtual concentration camps. A time when any of these detainees could be subjected to humiliating punishment or ill-treatment by the people supposedly looking after them or responsible for their care.
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Priests abused ‘thousands of children over 30-year period’

By John Cooney – Irish Independent. Friday April 10 2009

THOUSANDS of children were raped and abused by Catholic priests, many of them serial offenders in the Dublin diocese over a 30-year period, a shocking report on clerical sex abuse will reveal next month.

The horrendous scale of the abuse between 1975 and 2004 was revealed yesterday by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who urged his priests and Catholic lay people to receive the damning report by Judge Yvonne Murphy with “humility”.
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