The Irish Times – 24th May 2011

JAMIE SMYTH in Geneva

THE GOVERNMENT has defended its response to reports of clerical child sexual abuse and the committal of women to Magdalene laundries, saying it can’t “rewrite its history”.

It has also rejected criticism of its human rights record and announced it will ratify a United Nations protocol enabling more international scrutiny over places of detention.

At Ireland’s first hearing before the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva yesterday, Department of Justice secretary general Seán Aylward said human rights were central to Ireland’s domestic and foreign policies.

He addressed criticism made by several committee members about the Government’s response to the Ryan report into clerical child sex abuse and its failure to agree to calls for a statutory inquiry and redress for women committed to Magdalene laundries.

“Some of the issues that are raised and looked at in the Ryan report and that have been raised in relation to the Magdalene laundries relate to a very distant, far-off time,” said Mr Aylward in his initial response to the committee’s questions and observations.

“Many of the people who suffered in that period or were victims of it are no longer with us and it would be very difficult for the State to rewrite its history or right the wrongs that were done,” he said.

Mr Aylward, who told the committee he would give a detailed response to their questions today, said there was “a need to have a sense of proportion in what people say” about these issues.

Magdalene laundries were institutions for “fallen women” who broke the conventions of society by bearing a child out of wedlock. Some of these women have made allegations of abuse against these mainly church-run institutions, the last of which in Dublin was shut in 1996.

The Irish Human Rights Commission has recommended the Government establish a statutory inquiry into the treatment of women and girls in the laundries. It has also recommended that redress be provided as appropriate.

The Government is still considering its response to the commission’s report and lobbying by survivors advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes.

The UN committee is holding two days of hearings to question the Government on its record on the rights of those held in detention.

On the opening day of the hearing yesterday committee member Xuexian Wang said he agreed with submissions to the committee by human rights groups that the Government should carry out an inquiry into the committal of women to Magdalene laundries.

“This is not just a historical wrong – this is an ongoing wrong. It seems to me that the Government is duty bound to redress the situation of those still alive and suffering,” he said.

Committee rapporteur Nora Sveaass said it was the State’s responsibility to punish those responsible and suggested the State consider a redress scheme for victims. “My question is when will it happen,” she asked.

Several committee members also questioned the Government on its failure to implement all the recommendations of the Ryan report into clerical child sex abuse.

There were also questions raised about prison overcrowding, the State’s policy on abortion, the low acceptance of asylum claims, the independence of the Garda Ombudsman’s office and the administration of drugs to people with mental illnesses.

Mr Wang questioned the effectiveness of the State’s policy on preventing rendition flights, which he said relied too much on the public supplying information about rendition to the Garda. “I think it is up to the Government to clear up this issue,” he said.

The hearing continues today and will conclude this evening.

Ruari Quinn’s speech to Dáil Eireann following the publication of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (The Ryan Report)

Mr. Quinn is now Minister with responsibility for Education as well as other Portfolios.

Shattering

“The Ryan Commission report has shone a powerful light into probably the darkest corner of the history of the State,” the Taoiseach said. “It contains a shattering litany of abuse of children in care in this country over many decades. In doing so, it presents a searing indictment of the people who perpetrated that abuse, of the religious congregations who ran the institutions in which it took place, and of the organs of the State which failed in their duty to care for the children.”

Launching a scathing attack on the Department of Education, Labour’s Ruairi Quinn said he had lodged a series of simple questions since February seeking details about the nature and ownership of schools and the location and name of schools in the ownership of a religious order or a Roman Catholic bishop.

However, the department had refused to provide such information.

“Either officials in the department are members of secret societies, such as the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei, and have taken it upon themselves to protect the interests of these clerical orders at this point in time. . . or, alternatively, the minister is politically incompetent and incapable of managing the department,” Mr Quinn told the Dail.

Ireland is the only country in Europe where the primary school system is controlled by “private organisations”, Mr Quinn said.

In order to begin the transfer of schools out of “private” ownership, the department needed to provide an inventory of religious assets.

However, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has refused to provide details to the Opposition, the Labour Party said.

Mr Quinn added: “I do not believe Mr O’Keeffe, is a bad man. I do not believe he is a Catholic right-wing secret obscurantist, but many of the people working for him on a permanent salary — he will be gone in a couple of years — most certainly are, or else they are incompetent, lazy and destructive.”

The Labour spokesman concluded there was a continuing culture of “deferment and obedience” to the Catholic Church in the department.

C&AG Report: Education
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent

Thursday, September 16, 2010

THE publication of the Ryan report on institutional child abuse has led to savings of €15.4 million on legal bills last year.

The Commission on Child Abuse chaired by Mr Justice Seán Ryan published its landmark report in May 2009 but Department of Education accounts show that its total spend last year came to just €3.5m out of an allocation of almost €19m.

The variation was explained by the fact that the commission was unable to finalise as many legal bills of third parties because of the resources diverted to finalising and releasing the report, as well as dealing with its aftermath.

The department saved a further €55m on the planned €150m spend of the Residential Institutions Redress Board, mostly from a fall in the average award paid out and fewer awards being processed as not all the necessary documentation was provided.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, September 16, 2010

I read with interest Claire O’Sullivan’s article entitled, “Year delay before abuse inquiry decides on documents” (Monday, July 5, 2010). The very idea that any documents related to the Ryan Commission would be destroyed is deeply concerning. These documents—all these documents—constitute part of the nation’s heritage and, as such, they should be preserved and protected so that future generations never forgot the past while also ensuring no repetition thereof.

Survivors of the State’s residential institutions, moreover, are deeply divided, indeed sceptical, regarding the whole Redress Board and Ryan Commission process. One must ask therefore who precisely is being served by destroying documents? Might it be the State itself? Or, the religious congregations? Given the potential conflict of interest, it would seem appropriate that the Minister for Education commission an independent review prior to any irreversible action.

In this context, I would also ask whether documents related to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission were destroyed? Would anyone consider destroying documents related to the Holocaust? Confidentiality and privacy are, of course, always legitimate concerns. But professional archivists can ensure ethical handling of sensitive materials.

The Ryan Commission documents also contain material related to Ireland’s Magdalene institutions, and other institutions ultimately excluded from the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002. Given that the religious congregations refuse to provide access to records for women entering their Magdalene institutions after 1 January 1900, it is inconceivable that the State would consciously destroy documents that might help us better understand how such institutions operated, as well as the nature of the relationship between Magdalene laundries and State residential institutions. Again, there would appear to be a potential conflict of interest at play in this particular regard.

The Ryan Commission will remain significant in helping Irish people understand who we are as a nation, in the present as well as the past. These materials must be preserved.

Sincerely,

James M. Smith
Associate Professor
English Department and Irish Studies Program
Boston College
Chestnut HIll, MA 02467
617-552-1596
smithbt@bc.edu

By Claire O’Sullivan

Monday, July 05, 2010

IT will be another year before it will be known if the Ryan Commission’s one million written documents and oral testimony will be destroyed.

The oral testimony, while of potentially enormous historical value, is at greater risk of being destroyed as it was made to a confidential committee who by statute have an extra layer of legal confidentiality. Victims were given assurances that all testimony would be confidential. However, historians have argued that it should be retained for posterity. Last July, the Dáil voted for all the Ryan Report documentation to be preserved.

Secretary to the Ryan Commission, Brenda McVeigh said it is up to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse chairman Mr Justice Sean Ryan and commissioners to decide what happens to the evidence.

She warned however that the audio testimony is highly confidential “untested evidence” and the alleged perpetrators were never given the right of reply. Commission staff are cataloguing the millions of written documents so they can give them to the chairman and commissioners. These documents obtained by discovery relate to individuals and institutions.

The bulk of work being done at present by the commission’s four full-time and three part-time staff relates to the examination of claims for legal costs. Most claims have been successfully negotiated by the commission but recently Ms McVeigh said a few have “broken down” and will have to be sent to the Taxing Master at the High Court for independent assessment.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, July 05, 2010

One year ago this Thursday, Justice Sean Ryan published the long-awaited results of his report into child abuse at church-run industrial schools and orphanages, where rape and abuse of children was found to be ‘endemic’. As the anniversary approaches, John Downes asked a variety of people for their thoughts on what progress, if any, has been made since then

Christine Buckley, Abuse survivor and co-founder of the Aislinn centre
Alan Shatter, TD, Fine Gael spokesman on children
Barry Andrews, Minister for children
Paddy Doyle, Abuse survivor and author of ‘The God Squad’
Jillian van Turnhout, Chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance
Maeve Lewis, Executive director of One in Four

Christine Buckley – Abuse survivor and co-founder of the Aislinn centre

20 May 2009 is a day etched in my memory forever. I grabbed the report’s executive summary and fled to a nearby hotel. Despite reading the document three times I still could not believe that we at last had been vindicated.

The outrage of society propelled the religious to do what was morally right. The second tranche of money [from the religious orders], €110m, is disappointing. Nevertheless under the secrecy deal they were not compelled to make further contributions.

Of the 16 congregations involved in this process, 14 have stressed the establishment of a trust fund, “to offer and provide support to people who have experienced institutional care and their dependents and as a mark of genuine regret for suffering experienced”. We welcome the fact that religious organisations have been asked to contribute €200m towards redress costs, particularly in these recessionary times.

But the Magdalene women should never have been excluded from the redress board and I’m hoping that the government finds a way to pay redress money to these women because it’s a disgrace.

Alan Shatter- TD, Fine Gael spokesman on children

I think there have been a lot of promises made by government but in reality very little has been delivered. In the context of the child protection services, we know they are still seriously dysfunctional and fragmented.

The implementation plan published by Minister Andrews was worthy. But very little has happened since. For example, the HSE’s managerial culture and child-protection structures are still grossly ineffective, and legislation for the use of soft information for vetting purposes has still not been introduced. I believe 12 months on from its publication, very little has changed on the ground. There have been one or two initiatives, but there is still a lack of transparency in the running of the HSE. The failed attempts to cover up the case of Tracey Fay illustrates the change of ethos which needs to occur.

This government is paying lip service to child protection, but hasn’t taken the action required. If you compare the speed with which the complex Nama legislation was enacted in the House, with the failure utterly to legislate post Ryan, you get a true picture of this government’s priorities.

Barry Andrews – Minister for children

The government accepted in full the 20 recommendations contained in the Ryan report. The recommendations were framed to recognise and support the victims of past abuse and to ensure that children in state care today are supported and the events of the past are not repeated.

I was asked by government to formulate a plan that would comprehensively respond to the recommendations contained in the report. The 99-point implementation plan went beyond the Ryan recommendations and proposed wide reform of our child-protection services. That plan was widely welcomed by children’s organisations and is, I believe, a road map to improved children’s services.

In order to support and realise the commitments in the plan, the government allocated €15m as part of the budget last December.

This specific financial allocation will provide for a range of improvements including the recruitment of 265 additional frontline child-protection staff, extra aftercare services and enhanced oversight of the Children First Guidelines.

Paddy Doyle – Abuse survivor and author of ‘The God Squad’

In the year since the publication of the Ryan report not a lot has happened by way of bringing the culprits of horrendous deeds to book. On the contrary, the paedophiles that are still alive received the protection of Mr Justice Ryan who allocated them pseudonyms. This raises serious and very troubling questions apart from the obvious one as to why they should be so protected. Where are these people now? Do they have access to children? Why are they not on the sex offenders’ list?

While nobody would disagree that the Ryan report is a damning indictment of the religious orders and the state, we must ask why it is that, one year on, nothing of substance has been done to remove religious orders from the teaching and the care of children.

Apologies have become tedious and meaningless at this point in time and serve only to irritate those of us who were the children who bore the brunt of perverts and deviants into whose care we were placed. Like many reports in the past there is every chance the Ryan report will be just another report on another shelf. That appears to be where it is now heading.

Jillian van Turnhout – Chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance

The government’s Ryan Report Implementation Plan is critical to ensure that the abuse suffered by children at the hands of those tasked with caring for them can never, ever, happen again.

The Children’s Rights Alliance believes the plan to be excellent and can, if implemented, make a real difference to children’s lives. For that reason we awarded it a ‘B’ grade in our Report Card 2010.

That said, commitments alone do not equal action: plans and recommendations are meaningless without the political will and resources to make them real. The government must maintain its commitment to act with urgency on the promises made. To date, there has been some progress. Depressingly, however, some deadlines have already been missed or are looming large – and unless the government takes action immediately, they will be missed too… We are yet to be convinced government is truly committed to children’s rights. Setting a date for a referendum to strengthen children’s rights in the constitution is a real test of the government’s commitment to children.

Maeve Lewis – Executive director of One in Four

At One in Four we have had three times as many clients as normal in the past year. The long-term impact of childhood abuse has been revealed as people disclose lives filled with anguish, suffering and struggle.

With skilled support, pain can be transformed into wellbeing. Survivors deserve no less, but as a society we choose to fund professional services meagrely.

The children in the institutions were not invisible, and we must question how we allowed ourselves to be silent witnesses, never challenging what we saw. Perhaps because of our colonial past, we have no tradition of personal or collective accountability for the type of society in which we live. The same passivity persists today, as we permit children to live at risk of abuse because our disgraceful child-protection system does not function.

The Ombudsman for Children published a damning investigation into that system last week, but it has provoked astonishingly little debate. Our policies regarding children are amongst the most progressive in the world: the problem is that they are not implemented.

May 16, 2010 Sunday Tribune.

The Irish Times – Saturday, April 10, 2010

It has been harrowing to rehearse, and will be hard to watch, but the Abbey’s ‘documentary theatre’ piece based on the Ryan report is a cultural response to a national trauma, writes KATE HOLMQUIST

“Please note that the content of No Escape is disturbing. Over 16s only. Parental guidance necessary.”

THE WORDS ABOVE are how the Abbey Theatre warns its audience about the first piece of “documentary theatre” it has ever staged. The mental health advisory is one usually associated with cinema, TV and the internet.

No Escape isn’t a play in the traditional sense. It is an orchestrated reading by actors of the Ryan report, the investigation by Mr Justice Sean Ryan into abuse in Catholic-run industrial schools and institutions. The script was compiled and edited by journalist and TV director Mary Raftery, whose task it was to distil 2,700 pages of the Ryan report into a little more than 50 pages. Her goal was “to give a visceral sense of how the system broke children”.

The script is so harrowing that psychological counselling has been offered to the actors and the Abbey Theatre’s front-of-house staff have been given helpline numbers and advised on how to handle distressed audience members. It will be an intense 90-minute production, with no intermission. “It’s not going to be a fun night out at the theatre,” says Raftery.

When the Ryan report into abuse in the Artane, Letterfrack and Goldenbridge industrial schools was published in May 2009 – nearly a year ago – Abbey literary director Aideen Howard and artistic director Fiach Mac Conghail wanted to respond and ensure that the Abbey was “involved in the national conversation”, as Mac Conghail puts it.

He and Howard thought of bringing in a playwright, but that would have taken too long from commission to production of a script. The way to put the Ryan report on stage relatively quickly, they decided, was to emulate the process of the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London, which pioneered documentary theatre with its read-aloud verbatim account of the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday and its testimonies of survivors of Guantánamo. No playwright could possibly do better than the words of the people who had experienced the events.

The Abbey was less concerned with the issue of who, in these depressing times, would buy tickets for an unsettling evening of theatre concerning events that started in 1930, a very long ago time ago in the context of today’s Twitterati. Howard and Mac Conghail believed that, as custodians of the theatre’s traditions, they needed to take the report a step further and give it the sort of understanding and meaning that only the theatre can achieve.

Mac Conghail says: “You can ask: is this box office? I don’t care. We have a responsibility to present this work. It’s going to be tough for people, and not a night of entertainment.”

As playwright Sean O’Casey wrote in The Plough and the Stars , premiered at the Abbey in 1923 and to be staged there once again later this year: “The time is rotten ripe for revolution.”

The value of presenting the Ryan report on the stage, says Howard , is that it will be “a communal experience” and an opportunity to “bear witness”, compared to the solitary reading of a report in the newspaper or on the internet.

Howard and Mac Conghail have a strong stable of 20 playwrights currently commissioned, but instead they approached dogged working journalist Mary Raftery, who for 12 years has followed the story of institutional abuse and without whom the Ryan report may never have happened.

“She’s quite an extraordinary, unique person,” says Mac Conghail.

As the maker of the ground-breaking TV documentary, States of Fear , and the author of the book, Suffer the Little Children , Raftery grasped the challenge. She was already aware that, without some cultural statement, the Ryan report would “disappear in a puff of smoke” and be forgotten.

After a month’s preparation, she wrote the bulk of the script at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Co Monaghan, in an intensive two weeks, followed by a further month of editing. While at Annaghmakerrig, she found herself apologising to resident artists during communal meals for being “increasingly morose” as she waded through the report. She hadn’t expected to be so emotionally affected by her close reading, even though more than anyone she knew the material: “It was an extraordinary revelation.”

She praises Mr Justice Ryan: “I didn’t realise just how good the report was, the complexity of it, the way Ryan reflected not just the voices of the abused but also the voices of the people who worked in the system – the abusers – reaching a level of truth that was not available before. He conveyed a real sense of how complex the world of the institutions was. It was not a simple world. It was grossly and grotesquely abusive.” The reading was agony, but worthwhile in the end, like jumping into the freezing sea on a warm day. “You just have to do it,” Raftery says.

The cast have had a similar experience, plunging into No Escape with a mere three-week rehearsal period. Lorcan Cranitch, who will speak the words of Mr Justice Ryan, explains that the actors won’t be developing characters as they do in traditional theatre.

“I’M A MOUTHPIECE for the Ryan report and I’ll be making no attempt at becoming judicial,” he says. “The main challenge for us in presenting a factual document is what slant do you put on it, if you put a slant on it at all. It’s a fascinating place to be . . . The project is provocative, and I’m attracted to theatre that is provocative. There was also the opportunity to work with Róisín McBrinn, a very exciting director, and to be part of something that is ingrained in our psyche as a nation.”

Researching his part before rehearsals, Cranitch began reading the Ryan report in depth. “Very quickly I had to stop. I thought, I’m going to get in deeper than I need to be . . . I don’t think people realise exactly how horrific the report is.”

The account of a two-and-a-half-year-old being beaten stopped him in his tracks. For the actors, “it has taken its toll”, Cranitch adds, though he himself hasn’t availed of the counselling offered.

Choosing the most powerful pieces of testimony, while also linking them together in a way that told a story, was a challenge, says Raftery. “The audience will not be bored; they will be energised,” she says. “It’s a play in the sense that States of Fear was a documentary. I have taken that TV experience and translated in on to the stage.”

Who will want to see this work of theatre? Raftery sees her audience as the sort of people who used to read Magill magazine, where writers such as herself pulled together all the strands of an issue and produced what she calls “the definitive word”. She also expects that there will be people in their 50s, many of whom are among the 1,700 people who volunteered evidence to the Ryan report (300 were eventually chosen and quoted by Ryan). She thinks the play is also relevant to the children and friends of those who survived the industrial schools. As for the relatively privileged younger generation, she hopes that many will buy tickets out of a need to understand the trauma Irish society is still recovering from.

“From 1930, 170,000 people went through the institutional system, in which all kinds of abuse was endemic,” she says. “That’s numbing – it’s the equivalent of crimes against humanity during the second World War.”

Raftery explains her own resilience in the face of such horrific material, saying that she herself had a “middle-class, privileged childhood with no trauma of any kind” in the “intensive eccentricity” of Dublin 4, attending the Pembroke School, formerly known as “Miss Meredith’s”. She thinks that her protected childhood gave her strength.

“I have often thought I could never do what a counsellor does. I’d have difficulty absorbing pain at that level,” she says. “But I was driven to express the injustice of what happened to other people . . . As a journalist, you follow the story. If you are lucky enough to come across a story that will make a difference, you have a duty to follow it to the ends of the earth.”

“Raftery is so self-effacing,” concludes Lorcan Cranitch, “but in lots of ways she’s the heroine of the piece.”

No Escape previews on Tue, April 13, opens on Wed, April 14, and runs until Sat, April 24. For more, see abbeytheatre.ie

Religious orders seek millions in legal costs

Conor McMorrow and Shane Coleman

THE religious orders criticised in the Ryan report into child abuse are demanding tens of millions of euro in legal fees for appearing before the inquiry.

While the orders are close to a final agreement with the government to make additional contributions of €100m plus properties to the redress scheme, the Sunday Tribune has learned that the Department of Finance has been notified that the orders have applied to have their massive legal bills arising from the Ryan inquiry covered by the taxpayer.

Given the central role of the orders in the inquiry, it is thought their legal costs could far exceed €40m.

The move has been slammed by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny who said: “Just because it is legally correct does not make it morally justifiable.”

Kenny said: “If these reports are correct and the religious orders are seeking substantial legal costs from the Ryan Commission it is truly astonishing. At a time when the state is starved of cash, where vital services are left unfunded and ordinary families are being made pay ever more taxes, the idea that the people that created the need for the Ryan Commission are now going to seek their costs is unbelievable. Even if the legislation provides for this course of action just because it is legally correct does not make it morally justifiable.”

An estimate last year by the state’s financial watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General, said third party legal costs arising from the Ryan Commission could top €80m.

It is understood that the issue, including the final figure on the extra contributions to the redress scheme, may come before cabinet as early as this week. All government ministers have been circulated with a memo on the matter in recent days.

The Sunday Tribune understands that the final cash offer made by the religious orders tops €100m, along with major property transfers. This is on top of the €127m in cash and property they stumped up in the 2002 deal that limited their liability, and which was a fraction of what the final bill to the state will be. Estimates have put this cost at more than €1bn.

Any praise of the orders’ move to make further contributions is likely to be offset by the revelation that they have given the state a multi-million euro legal bill.

There was no one from the Ryan Commission available for comment when contacted but a well-placed source, close to the commission, said: “The commission is a completely independent body and the awarding of costs is a matter for the commission to deal with. I would be surprised if the religious orders or other parties did not seek their costs from the commission as they are entitled to under the legislation.”

Brother Edmund Garvey, spokesman for the Christian Brothers told the Sunday Tribune yesterday that he was not in a position to make a comment and no one from the Conference of Religious of Ireland was available for comment.

February 7, 2010
The Sunday Tribune.