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May we refer to the report Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and Suicidal Behavior in relation to the research by Dr. Ella Arensman and Martina O’ Riordan based on interviews with 90 former residents of industrial schools?
The research was launched at a conference at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin on the 24th November 2007 by Dr. Helen Buckley.
After reading the aforementioned report by Dr. Ella Arensman and Martina O’ Riordan which was based on interviews with just 90 former residents of industrial schools it fails to have any specific information of the wrongs, indignities and illegalities we, abused people, have faced as follows:
The only possible reason for the Taoiseach’s apology on the 11th May 1999 to thousands of victims of institutional child abuse is because it was spurred on by the High Court proceedings against the Religious Orders, the Minister for Health & Children, and the Minister for Education & Science, Ireland and the Attorney General.
We would like to point out that a petition was sent to the Taoiseach’s office several years ago asking him for a personal apology to victims of institutional child abuse but what we have got in return is an unacceptable Redress Board and an unacceptable Ryan Commission.
Not surprisingly, because one of transcripts from a Phase 3 public hearing clearly states that many victims of institutional child abuse have no confidence in the Ryan Commission.
Bertie Ahern T.D appeared before the Ryan Commission on the 5th July 2004.
Yet he has not been excluded from being seen a second time.
On the basis of his testimony on that day it is clear that he seriously needs to “clarify particular issues”.
Bertie Ahern T.D told how the issue of making an apology arose.
Bertie Ahern T.D, said it came up at Cabinet from Michael Martin, in March 1998, and that by the end of the year a decision had been made “to act” in respect of abuse.
This resulted in the Government Working Group to address abuse in industrial schools.
The Group, with several secretaries – general of departments, was unprecedented in its seniority and importance.
Bertie Ahern T.D, in 1998 and later, gave the impression that this was motivated by his knowledge of the suffering of abused people and his encounters with them.
It was central to his testimony before the Ryan Commission.
The evidence, however, raises serious questions.
The report of the working group, and Bertie Ahern T.D, response to it is primarily about legal issues involving Church and State.
The victims of abuse feature as part of that larger legal issue.
In his testimony on July 5th 2004, Bertie Ahern T.D implied that the Governments package of abuse legislation was a response to demands from victim’s organisations.
This was not the case.
The whole programme – of legislation and its implementation pursued now for 11 years – came from the government.
Though Bertie Ahern T.D, said he had been inspired by those who had been abused – represented by groups as well as individuals - this could not have been the case because none of the groups existed.
Further, very few individuals had met either Bertie Ahern T.D or any of the relevant ministers before 1999.
In answer to the question, during his July 2004 appearance before the Ryan Commission, about the actual apology given on 11th May 1999, Bertie Ahern T.D said the recommendation for an apology was “not in the report”.
It came, he said, “from the representatives of various groups”.
Yet these groups did not exist at that time.
They were formed after the apology and in response to it, on the basis that the abused now saw, and believed in good faith, that action was at last starting and would remedy their long – standing anguish.
But Bertie Ahern T.D, told the Ryan Commission, “I remember how the apology came around very clearly, because, while all of the issues that we were talking about, professional help and caring and trying to assist these people back who had been badly dealt with by the State in our view, the hurt was not going to be removed unless you said sorry. We made the decision. They felt that we owed them something”.
Bertie Ahern T.D, went on, using this lyrical language, and vividly recalling a whole sequence of personal experiences that, he claimed helped to set the agenda for the next few years.
Bertie Ahern T.Ds, testimony was in conflict with evidence by Michael Martin, Michael Woods and Tom Boland, the key figure in the whole creation of the strategy for dealing with victims of abuse.
It was also in conflict with the facts surrounding the representative groups which were formed after the apology as mentioned above.
Michael Martin was asked by Mr Clarke, a barrister for the Ryan Commission, “As I understand it the report from your working group became available in April 1999.
That report was then considered by the Cabinet sub – committee which you chaired.
That Cabinet sub – committee recommended a number of measures to Government at that time, of which the apology was one, and indeed the establishment of the commission was another, is that correct” Michael Martin replied, “that’s correct, yes.”
Bertie Ahern T.D, was not on that working group [chaired by Martin] nor on the sub –committee [chaired by Tánaiste, Mary Harney].
The actual recommendation in favour of an apology was reportedly contained on page five of the Report on Measures to Assist Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse and went to the Government in April 1999, but passages on that page, dealing with the Governments “pro – active” response to the abused, have been blanked out.
This, after all, was a sensitive strategic document.
When Bertie Ahern T.D, said that the apology and all that depended on it would have to be “wholeheartedly” he omitted a key problem for many abused people.
This was that they had been criminalised by the court processes, which had consigned them to the industrial schools – to all intents and purposes ‘prisons’ – and they had not been exonerated.
It’s clear that Mr. Ryan of the Ryan Commission succeeded Justice Mary Laffoy as chairman after she resigned in September 2003, accusing the Government of failing to adequately resource the commission.
Some victims support groups at that time were far from happy with the reform proposals, claiming they were “sampling by the back door”.
But Mr Noel Dempsey the Minister for Education and Science at that time insisted it was not sampling and that the Government had not gone back on a pledge made during its previous term of office to investigate every allegation of abuse.
The minister said the intention had been that everybody who needed to make a complaint would have the opportunity to be heard. “That promise still remains; it could be heard in the investigation committee or be heard in the confidential committee”.
This was not the case.
It’s quite clear that sampling took place in the Ryan Commission which took evidence from only a handful of victims of institutional child abuse and in some cases there was little or nothing written down or recorded by the Ryan Commission.
After several years the Ryan Commission has only managed to investigate a fraction of thousands of allegations of abuse.
The Phase3 public hearings which followed were clearly set up as a platform for the State and the Religious Orders to deny the truth and the so – called “Experts” doing their reports behind closed doors are being used to cover the truth.
Many victims of institutional child abuse who have made submissions to the Ryan Commission spoke strongly of their bitterness at having “a criminal record” as a result of their committal to a reformatory or industrial school thirty, forty or more years ago, some told us that they had even been refused employment on account of such record.
The Ryan Commission at that time failed to give such matters any detailed consideration in relation to the Criminal records Page 83 Criminal records 8.13.
It was their wish for the record to be expunged in some way, so that no reference could or would be made to their confinement in an institution.
We do not know, for example whether a persons formal criminal record includes the details of his/her detention in an industrial or reformatory school.
We have been informed that there would normally have been a record in respect of children who committed offences as a result of which they were detained in a reformatory or industrial school, but that there ought not to be a criminal record in respect of a child placed in such an institution for care reasons.
We are not however in a position to arrive at any conclusions on this question.
The Ryan Commission is aware that the Children Act, 2001 provides in section 258 a type of rehabilitation.
From another source Michael McDowell, the Minister of Justice said that the reason the forms with the Heading: Order of Detention was used after our trips to the District Courts was because the Court Service had no other types of forms on hand.
Obviously Michael McDowell, the Minister of Justice has never seen an Order of Detention.
These forms had only one obvious use and that use was to do with the detention of children in the institutions.
It’s clear that the Ryan Commission and the Redress Board have failed many victims of institutional child abuse.
There are many shortcomings.
There have been breaches of their Constitutional Rights to bodily integrity.
Their right to protection against unjust attacks on miners, which the new proposed constitutional amendment on Child Protection is designed to strengthen, was not respected.
They were deprived of their personal liberty and this was done in accordance with law.
They were not given a basic minimum education, or proper moral, intellectual and social guidance.
They were not fed, clothed or educated.
Their parents were not respected nor helped to provide a family life for their children who were taken from them.
This involved meddling in the natural and imprescriptibly rights of the children sent to reformatory and industrial schools.
In their recent attempts to rectify these wrong doings, the Religious Orders, the Department of Education and Science, the Department of Health and Children, Ireland and the Attorney General, have all failed to make discovery of documents, notes, records or memoranda in their possession, thus undermining any possibility of abuse victims getting true justice.
This particularly applies to the orders for detention and the case history files of victims, admission records and discharge records.
Reformatory and Industrial School records and other documents are missing or have deliberately been ‘lost’.
So too have details of children being put into care, copies of court proceedings and correspondence from next of kin.
Medical records are missing, including dental records, hospital attendance and inspections by doctors of institutions.
Not surprisingly, details of complaints against any member of the Religious Orders, lay staff, child minders or gardeners, regarding allegations of abuse are missing.
Similarly, complaints in relation to corporal punishment have not been made available and in most cases have not been preserved.
There has not been any submission to the Ryan Commission or any fully enforced request for this, of accounts of money paid by the State to the Religious Orders for work in institutions and how it was dispersed.
The Ryan Commission has failed to grasp that between the 1920s and 1980s, an estimated 150,000 children were sent to Ireland’s notorious institutions, where many suffered horrific abuse and neglect at the hands of the Religious Orders and the State.
Hard manual labour replaced education and substantial numbers of abuse children left the institutions unable to read or write.
Since the Ryan Commission and the Redress Boards inception, an estimated 75 victims of institutional child abuse have taken their own lives.
It has been learnt for several years that legal firms pressurized Michael McDowell, and Minister Michael Martin and their colleagues in the Irish Government to set up the Redress Board.
We have found the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission to be a Draconian and Secretive organization that is blatantly biased against an applicant, who alleges that they were abused while resident as children in Irish State Institutions.
The Redress Board inform the people of allegations made against them as a matter of justice but without it being expected that they will want to attend since no findings will be made against them.
Any applicant to the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission can, and have made serious allegations of crimes against them while they were children, and resident in state run institutions in Ireland.
These alleged heinous crimes are detested by the general public, and if successfully tried in court, would result in a prison sentence greater than murder.
The Redress Board and the Ryan Commission appear to have little or no regard for innocence and fair justice.
All papers relating to applicants cases are held by the Redress Board in total secrecy.
And its victims are denied their right to access any records of any Redress Board hearing.
The esteemed and learned Judiciary, Barristers, Solicitors and the legal firms who work in and around the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission are acutely aware that some applicants have produced statements alleging abuse and these esteemed and honourable people remain silent then get paid for doing so by the Board.
And the Irish Judiciary, and the Barristers, and firms of solicitors describe the Redress Board and the Ryan Commissions as “Justice”.
Millions of euros of public money have been awarded in secret without any fair hearing or challenge through the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission.
We submit that Ireland is in breach of its Constitution, and Civil, National, European, and International rights for victims of institutional child abuse.
We submit that no person is safe while the Redress Board or the Ryan Commission continues to exist.
We summit that the Irish Government has committed a protracted act of reckless foolishness on a scale unprecedented in the entire history of child abuse compensation schemes.
We believe that the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission are a National disgrace, and an International scandal.
The Irish Government politicians, and their colleagues, who include firms of Barristers and Solicitors who gave advice and set up the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission, have placed evil monsters in our society.
The Ryan Commission and the late Judge Sean O’Leary and his colleagues in the Redress Board are fully aware of this monumental, and catastrophic crooked situation.
With so many crooked lawyers around, it is difficult, if not impossible to secure the services of any Solicitor who would be prepared to challenge the might of this very unacceptable and biased Redress Board and Ryan Commission.
We have written in detail, and made verbal contact with the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission on several occasions.
But even though they had seen, and read our submissions, they are prepared to ignore our evidence, and do nothing about it.
Should you be a genuine applicant to the Redress Board or the Ryan Commission, this vile practice does you no good service; it destroys innocent people and their families.
We believe that Solicitors, Barristers, and the late Judge Sean O’Leary, including the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission as a whole, have for years, assisted through their draconian law and secretive authorities, have done, and are continuing to operate their system of outrageous secrecy, cookery, and playing their part in a complicated, and well planned, and engineered cover – up of a monumental national sexual scandal, involving the scandalous neglect by the Irish Government, and the Catholic Church, of our children, who were placed in the care of the Irish State, and the Church run institutions many years ago.
In total Secrecy, the Redress Board pays out large sums of money and expenses and legal fees claimed by the applicant’s legal teams.
The late Judge Sean O’Leary was aware that the Redress Board is fundamentally flawed, and that the Redress Board was in breech of Civil and Human rights, and European, National and International Laws.
We have no feeling for the late Judge Sean O’Leary’s colleagues who worked with him, and continue to work, and operate in a system that is fundamentally flawed.
The nature and doings of the Redress Board and the Ryan Commission, and the late Judge Sean O’Leary support, and status held, epitomizes a vile corruption in the Irish Government, and in the Irish legal profession.
The late Judge Sean O’Leary knew he was doing wrong, but he chose along with the State and the present Minister of Education and Science and the Ryan Commission to do nothing about it.
It seems that the States so – called Ryan Commission and the so – called Redress Board is drawing to its conclusion sometime from now.
Many thousands of victim’s of institutional child abuse regard this as a travesty of justice and totally disdainful of their rights.