The Irish Times – Wednesday, November 18, 2009

ANALYSIS: Many of the children abused in Australia, prompting this week’s apology by the prime minister there, came originally from Ireland, writes MARY RAFTERY

THERE IS always one story that haunts you, so graphic and disturbing it is almost too terrible to contemplate.

In over a decade of researching the experiences of people all over the world whose childhoods were destroyed by state-sponsored abuse, one of the worst I came across was that of a small, blue-eyed boy at Tardun, an orphanage in western Australia. He was one of the tens of thousands apologised to on Monday by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, as that country at last faces up to the savage abuses suffered by so many taken as children into state-funded care.

This boy had been sent to Australia from the UK. He told his story to a British House of Commons select committee established in the late 1990s to investigate the child migrant schemes.

Tardun was one of the more notorious of Australia’s 500 or so children’s institutions. It had all sorts of Irish connections. It was one of four such institutions run by the Christian Brothers, who were tightly controlled by their Irish leadership, based at the Dublin headquarters in Marino. They even named another of their western Australian institutions Clontarf – it is to be found in Waterford, a suburb of Perth.

Many of the brothers working in the Australian institutions were first generation Irish. These included Br Paul Keaney, the infamous resident manager of Bindoon (another Christian Brothers-run boys’ orphanage) up to the 1950s, who was born in Rossinver, Co Leitrim.

Thousands of boys passed through these institutions. Most were Australian, who, like so many Irish children, ended up in care during the middle decades of the 20th century for reasons of poverty and disadvantage.

Thousands of others, however, had been sent from institutions throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with the promise of a new life of sunshine and hope. And among these were to be found a surprising number of Irish children, born to Irish mothers fleeing the censorious atmosphere in this country and hoping to keep their pregnancies secret by going to England.

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NOVEMBER 17TH 2009

PRESS RELEASE – ONE IN FOUR.

One in Four today condemns the delay by certain religious orders in making reparation pledges to a fund for survivors of industrial schools and institutions. Executive Director Maeve Lewis says “The entire country was shocked by the revelations of systemic abuse of children by members of religious congregations in the Ryan Report earlier this year. At the time, the religious leaders made repeated apologies to survivors, and indicated that they would be generous in making an additional contribution to a reparation fund for survivors. It is entirely unacceptable that six months later some congregations have not lived up to this commitment.”

Maeve Lewis continues: “Despite what we learned from Ryan, at One in Four we regularly meet survivors who are pursuing a civil action against a religious congregation for compensation for the terrible suffering they endured as children and the devastating impact this has had on their lives. Unfortunately, in a spirit completely at odds with the public apologies, most clients are met with a blanket denial of their claims by the congregations. Time and time again the statute of limitations is used as a defence, and survivors are left with neither acknowledgement nor recompense. Will the Catholic Church ever learn?”

The Irish Times – Tuesday, November 17, 2009

ALISON HEALY

THE IRISH Government should follow the example of the Australian prime minister by singling out the forgotten Irish victims of abuse and giving them an apology, the Templemore Forgotten Victims group said yesterday.

Dr Rosaleen Rogers, chairwoman of the support group, said the Ryan report had focused on children in residential institutions but did not consider the fate of those who were detained in psychiatric institutions, Magdalene laundries or had been sent abroad.

She said these children were truly the forgotten victims and deserved an apology from the Government.

Dr Rogers, originally from Co Tipperary, was detained in a psychiatric institution when she was 16 and sent to Britain three years later. She set up the support group to help others in a similar situation.

“There are probably thousands like me,” she said. “I’m speaking for not only those who are alive.”

She said many cases were never heard about because people died on the streets abroad or spent their lives in psychiatric institutions.

Christine Buckley of the Aislinn support group said it was difficult to put a figure on the number of Irish children sent to care institutions or for adoption to countries such as Britain, the US, Canada and Australia. “But after the news in Australia, our phone will probably start ringing with people wanting to tell their stories,” she said.

The Department of Education said it had no information on the number of Irish children sent abroad.

One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis said it was also not clear how many of the thousands of children sent from Britain to Australia had Irish parents.

She welcomed Mr Rudd’s intervention and said such apologies “mean an awful lot to people who have experienced trauma”.

It was important that their pain was acknowledged in a public way, Ms Lewis added.

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Taoiseach Brian Cowen have both apologised on behalf of the State for the abuse suffered by children in residential institutions.

The Irish Times – Tuesday, November 17, 2009
PATSY McGARRY

SOME OF the 18 religious congregations that ran residential institutions investigated by the Ryan commission have yet to respond to letters from Government requesting them to indicate what they would contribute to a new compensation fund for former residents of the institutions.

On July 28th last the Government said it expected the congregations would offer a substantial contribution by way of reparation for the suffering of children in the institutions.

It sent the statement to leaders of the relevant congregations, with attention specifically drawn to this contribution aspect.

When some congregations did not respond to that statement, Taoiseach Brian Cowen wrote to the congregations in September requesting that their offer be forwarded to the Minister for Education as soon as possible.

Then, on October 22nd last, Brigid McManus, secretary general at the Department of Education, again wrote to congregations with a similar request.

However, a spokeswoman for the department has told The Irish Times that “while responses have been received from some congregations, the position is that a full set of responses from all the congregations is awaited”.

Meanwhile, a panel set up by the Government at the end of July to assess details of the congregations’ financial position, submitted to Government in the summer, has completed its work.

The panel was chaired by Frank Daly, former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners.

It was to report to Government on the adequacy of the financial statements from the congregations as a basis for assessing their resources.

That report is now “under examination prior to being submitted to the Government”, the Department of Education spokeswoman said.

The Irish Times – Saturday, November 7, 2009

CULTURE SHOCK: A FORTNIGHT AGO, the Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe announced the formation of a committee to consider what is surely the most difficult public art commission in the history of the State. The Ryan report into institutional child abuse recommended, among other things, the erection of “a memorial to the victims as a permanent public acknowledgement of their experiences”, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE
Beyond suggesting that it contain the key words of the Taoiseach’s public apology, issued in 1999, the commission, reasonably enough, did not go into detail. It will thus be up to the new committee to consult with survivors, work out the appropriate form of the memorial and “oversee the commissioning and delivery by the Office for Public Works (through competition) of the design and building of the memorial”.
The people chosen for this task are formidable and well qualified, with the former chairman of the OPW, Sean Benton, leading the effort and Bernadette Fahy and Paddy Doyle representing survivors. Yet it is an undertaking of extraordinary difficulty. The psychic wound inflicted by decades of systematic violence against children is very deep. It cuts most profoundly, of course, into those who experienced that violence at first hand, but it also leaves an ugly scar on those who inflicted it – the whole apparatus of Church and State and, more broadly, the collective culture of independent Ireland.

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