Jul

6

These materials must be preserved.

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 9 Comments

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

Jul

5

Year delay before abuse inquiry decides on documents

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 13 Comments

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

Jun

22

Lord Mayor’s Statement on abuse suffered by Children in Residential Institutions

Filed Under Child Abuse, RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 16 Comments

Press Statement 17th June 2010.

Lord Mayor’s Statement on abuse suffered by Children in Residential Institutions.

At its meeting on 14th June 2010, Dublin City Council debated the findings of recent reports on the issue of the abuse suffered by children in this country. Cllr. Mannix Flynn put forward the motion and also called on the Lord Mayor to issue a public statement, acknowledging that the abuse had happened, and expressing sorrow and regret at what had happened to children at the hands of the church and the state. Cllr. Flynn read a statement into the record covering the issue of child abuse in general, with reference to the findings of the Murphy, Ryan and Ferns Reports. “Finally after decades everybody accepts that what happened to thousands of children was awful. But it wasn’t just awful, it was criminal and so far the only people who have been criminalised in this whole sorry tale are those children sent by the courts to these institutions and that’s simply not good enough”, said Cllr. Flynn.

He also called on fellow Councillors to lend their support for a new Charter for Children and a new Bill of Rights. The ensuing debate involved several Councillors, all of whom expressed their solidarity with the victims of abuse in childhood. The Lord Mayor commented that the debate was extremely moving and that the sentiments expressed by Cllr. Flynn had resonated throughout the Council Chamber, evidenced by the expressions of support given by his fellow Councillors and Management, who expressed their regret and sorrow at what had happened most especially to children who were criminalised and incarcerated under the Non-Attendance of School Act. The Lord Mayor stated that she fully supported and endorsed Cllr. Flynn’s motion, which was unanimously carried, and formally read it into the record of the City Council. She expressed her deep concern and regret at the abusive treatment to which children had been subjected, and emphasised the necessity to bring the perpetrators of these appalling crimes to justice. She added that the City Council would facilitate, where possible, the provision of relevant minutes of School Attendance Board Meetings through an archivist’s report, while respecting the sensitivities of the victims involved.

Ends.

For further information – please contact Lord Mayor, Cllr. Emer Costello at Tel: 086 3831805 or Cllr. Mannix Flynn at Tel: 087-2246664

Note to Editor

FULL TEXT OF MOTION – COUNCILLOR MANNIX FLYNN

That this Committee calls on the Lord Mayor, Councillor Emer Costello to issue a statement in relation to the Dublin Diocesan Report and its findings also that the Lord Mayor call a debate on the issue in chambers. Dublin City Councillors have a role to play in how the safety and the welfare of our children is managed and that this Council issue a statement of regret and apology to all those who were abused in residential institutions. The then Dublin Corporation administrated the Non-attendance of School Act on behalf of the Department of Justice. Children were brought before the Children’s Court under this act and incarcerated for long periods of time throughout their childhoods where they suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of those whose care they were entrusted. It is the duty of the now Dublin City Council to acknowledge its role in the history of residential institutions and set its record straight in the interest of healing and reconciliation. I believe it is now time for us to take this positive, responsible position.

May

16

‘Just another report on another shelf’

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 16 Comments

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.

Apr

10

Bearing communal witness

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 17 Comments

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

Feb

7

Ryan report scandal: Christian Brothers and others demand €40m

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 18 Comments

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.

Jan

11

Testimony of abuse victims ‘will not be destroyed’

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 10 Comments

By Michael Brennan Political Correspondent

Monday January 11 2010

THE one million records of the Ryan Commission into child abuse have been saved — despite fears that they would be immediately destroyed.

The Government had sought advice from the Attorney General about reports that the commission was “leaning towards” the destruction of all documents used in preparing its report on child abuse in religious-run institutions.

But the commission has now given the Government assurances that no action will be taken on these documents for some time.

Its secretary Brenda McVeigh said work was currently ongoing to catalogue the one million paper records accumulated by its investigative committee over a nine-year period, which include witness statements by abuse victims.

“There was never a question of destroying the investigation committee documents,” she said.

The documents are now being preserved until the Ryan Commission meets (most likely later this year) to decide what to do with them.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe said: “The Government supports the desirability of preserving, in so far as possible, these records for posterity.”

Read more

Oct

27

Reviewing the Ryan Report

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 19 Comments

David Quinn
Issue 391, vol.98, Autumn 2009. Dublin Jesuits Journal.

The story of the Ryan Report does not begin in 1999 with Mary Raftery’s television documentary States of Fear. It begins three years before, with Louis Lentin’s documentary Dear Daughter, which told the story of Christine Buckley, who had been brought up by the Sisters of Mercy at Goldenbridge Orphanage.

Before this there had been books, such as The God Squad (1993) by Paddy Doyle, but it was Dear Daughter that really drew public attention in a major way to the issue of child abuse in institutions run by eighteen Catholic religious orders. This means that the issue of institutional abuse has now been part of the public consciousness for thirteen years.

The importance of Mary Raftery’s States of Fear is that it led to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology to victims of institutional abuse and also to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which was originally headed by Justice Mary Laffoy. She later resigned, citing disagreements with the Department of Education. When Judge Sean Ryan became head of the Commission, he decided not to hear every single former resident who wished to be heard. Instead he would hear from a sample of 1,090 people. This would allow the Commission to finish its work within a fairly reasonable timeframe.

Public Hearings
I reported on the vast majority of public sittings of the Ryan Commission, while employed by the Irish Independent as its religious affairs correspondent. Ryan cut an impressive figure. He had the cool authoritative manner of an old-fashioned country GP. When former residents would become angry at what they were hearing, especially when the heads of the orders were giving testimony, he could almost always calm them down. When hearing evidence from the heads of the religious orders, Judge Ryan would always have about him an air of objectivity, without ever seeming to be detached from proceedings. In other words, he acted as a judge should act.

The public hearings were almost entirely dominated by the evidence of the religious orders. This is because the former residents were frequently naming names to the Commission. However, the vast majority of those being named had never been charged with an offence, let alone convicted of one. The former residents, therefore, had to be heard in private. The testimony of the religious orders was mostly very uniform. Each representative described conditions in which resources – both human and financial – were scarce. Generally, there were about thirty children for every adult. Nuns would sometimes go to bed with up to six babies in their room. There was very little time off. The regimes were based on discipline first and foremost. The institutions were run on military lines. The system was mostly impersonal.

Listening to the accounts of the various religious, I was reminded of the time I saw an old black and white film version of Jane Eyre. Eyre, of course, spends part of her childhood in an institution and in one scene we see her and the other girls being woken to the whistle, washing to the whistle, getting dressed to the whistle and marching down to breakfast to the whistle. Each child, as I recall, was also assigned a number.

The accounts also reminded me of a more recent film, Les Choristes (2004). It is set in France, just after World War II, and in an institution for boys run by lay people. The place is casually cruel and uncaring. It is assumed that the boys will overrun the school, given the slightest chance, and the emphasis is all on discipline. In one scene a teacher assumes another teacher is trying to abuse one of the boys. Nothing much is thought of this. It is only mildly frowned upon. In this school some of the teachers are more caring than others and the hero is obviously the one who founds the choir, which gives some of the boys a creative outlet that transforms them.

The total contrast between Les Choristes and films about institutional life in Ireland should be noted. Unlike those Irish films, it avoids sentimentality and is never melodramatic. Also, the sound of axes grinding cannot be heard.

The reports of Dr Anna McCabe were frequently mentioned in the testimony to the Ryan Commission. Dr McCabe was the person, in the middle of the last century, appointed by the Department of Education to inspect the schools. Some of her reports were critical. For example, one of them criticised serious shortcomings at Newtownforbes, an institution run by the Mercy Sisters, but a later report gave it a relatively clean bill of health.

The orders almost invariably expressed sorrow at some of the things that happened in their institutions. Also invariably, they reported a big increase in the number of abuse allegations they received following Bertie Ahern’s apology and the announcement that he was setting up a Redress Board, in addition to what become the Ryan Commission.

Why ‘Industrial’ Schools?The industrial school system was a legacy of the 19th century. It originated in Sweden, Switzerland and Germany and came to Ireland via Britain. In Britain such schools were often run by religious societies. Britain enjoyed a Protestant religious revival in the 19th century and Evangelicals were behind numerous legal reforms.

Some of those reforms were aimed at the care of children. Organisations like Barnardos and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were founded in this era. The industrial schools were aimed specifically at ‘solving’ the problem of street children. Reports from the time say that some cities in England had hundreds, if not thousands, of vagrant children. Cities like London were growing rapidly and were often very overcrowded; tenements frequently had many large families living in one or two room flats.

Many city children quickly turned to crime as the only way they could find of keeping body and soul together (think the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist) and the common remedy was to put them in adult prisons. The industrial schools offered an alternative to this, a terrible alternative as it turns out. But the intent was to keep such children out of prison and off the streets, to feed and house them and train them for work when they left the schools – hence the name ‘industrial’ schools.

In Ireland, the religious orders ended up running the vast majority of industrial schools and orphanages. Irish Catholics feared the schools would otherwise be used to convert the children to Protestantism, and the religious offered a cheap alternative to lay staff, however poorly they might be paid.

Unfortunately, we now know that, even if the industrial schools were well run, they still would not have been fit places for children. Institutions never are, especially when they are under-staffed and under-funded. An institution can never provide a substitute for a loving family and that is an unavoidable and unalterable fact.

However, in many cases the institutions were appallingly run and physical, sexual and emotional abuses, as well as neglect, were commonplace. This is made abundantly clear by the Ryan Report.

The Ryan Report, of course, dominated the news headlines here for several weeks after its publication. The imprisonment of Frank Dunlop, the revelation of huge debts at Anglo-Irish Bank, and even the local and European elections only slightly distracted media and public attention from it. It also made headlines overseas: Al Jazeera covered it; a German newspaper reported that Ireland had run a series of ‘terror camps’ for children for years. No mention was made of the fact the Germany also had its industrial schools.

The Numbers
As mentioned, a total of 1,090 former residents of the institutions reported to the Ryan Commission. Between them, they named 800 alleged abusers in over 200 institutions. But there was very wide variation from institution to institution in terms of the amount of abuse taking place in each of them, something that the executive summary of the Ryan Report, which is what most journalists will have read, did not make clear. For example, fully 50 per cent of physical abuse reports and 64 per cent of the sex abuse reports heard by the Commission that involved boys, related to four of the boys institutions. The same applies to the girls’ institutions. Three schools account for almost 40 per cent of the physical abuse reports, or 48 reports each, while 19 schools had an average of 2.5 reports each.

Sexual abuse was also far worse in the boys’ institution than in the girls’, which is probably to be expected. In the girls’ institutions, sex abuse was normally perpetrated by outside workmen, or by visiting priests or religious, or by foster families, with whom the girls occasionally stayed.

A relative handful of individuals accounted for a disproportionate share of the complaints. For example: a total of 241 female religious were named as physical abusers. However, four of these were named by 125 witnesses, and 156 Sisters were named by one witness each. In total, of the 800 religious and others named as abusers, half were named by only one person.

It is also worth noting that an institution only received a special chapter in the Ryan Report if it was the subject of more than 20 complaints of abuse. Sixteen institutions, out of the dozens run by the orders, had more than 20 complaints made against them.

When I first reported the above figures in the Irish Catholic and the Irish Independent, I was accused by a handful of people (fewer than I had expected) of ‘playing the numbers game’. But surely numbers matter immensely? If they do not, then why did numbers feature so heavily in the Ryan Report and in the subsequent media coverage of it, and in the debates about it? In the North, for example, it is not immaterial whether 300 or 3,000 people died in the ‘Troubles’.

If I were a member of an order that ran those institutions that were relatively better run than some of the others, I would want people to know this. I would regard it as particularly unfair and unjust if every institution was universally regarded as being as terrible as the very worst of the institutions.

Read more

Sep

23

Media coverage of Ryan report not objective, priest claims

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 5 Comments

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE MEDIA has been criticised for being “clearly not objective” in coverage of the Ryan report on child abuse and of being “not at all interested” in the religious congregations’ side of the story.

The criticisms, made and reported by author, commentator and Redemptorist priest, Fr Tony Flannery, appear in his introduction to the book Responding to the Ryan Report (Columba), which he edited.

He writes that, on publication of the Ryan report: “I found myself getting more and more irritated by the majority of the media coverage . . . Too many of the regular media commentators were clearly not objective, but rather had obvious agendas of their own.”

Read more

Jul

29

Deference towards Church ‘lost amid abuse scandals’

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 1 Comment

28/07/2009

Children’s Minister Barry Andrews today insisted Irish people no longer have the deference towards the Catholic Church that allowed institutional child abuse to thrive for decades.

During emotional outbursts by abuse survivors at the launch of a Government plan to make sure the systemic torture can never again happen, Mr Andrews said there had been a sea change in society. “I believe that we have come a long way,” he said.

“The deference that was at the core of the problem is no longer there.”

The Children’s Minister blamed an undue high regard for religious institutions and the State for allowing a decades-long cover-up of sickening abuse in church-run homes, schools and orphanages since the 1940s.

While victims generally welcomed the Government plan, some insisted it was too little too late.

Survivor Bernadette Fahy, who works with the Aislinn Centre for addicts, demanded to know why many inspections of children’s institutions are still announced in advance.

She called for abuse survivors to be put on inspection groups because they would know best the subtleties of how abused children are manipulated and silenced.

“When visits were announced we were left scrubbing and cleaning for weeks before the visit, put in a little dress for the day of the visit, the table set beautifully, and as soon as the inspectors left it was back to the grind,” she said.

Mr Andrews insisted announced visits are needed in some cases to make sure children and staff are available to be interviewed by inspectors.

Read more

Next Page →