FIVE years after it was supposed to shut up shop solicitors are again touting for customers to claim compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB).

So far, solicitors have earned €148m in fees and the RIRB is now preparing to accept more ‘late applications’. The RIRB has, to date, given out at least €800m in compensation to those who spent time in residential institutions.

Now, at least one Dublin solicitor is looking for ‘late applicants’ who didn’t claim– including the sons and daughters of those who were in such institutions to see if they are entitled to claim.

Where a person who is entitled to redress has died since May 11, 1999, the application may be made by his or her spouse or children. Burns Kelly Corrigan solicitors is just one of 856 firms of solicitors who have received a total of 12,034 applications for compensation under the scheme.

“Our firm has been involved with the redress board since 2005, and originally had thousands of applications,” said a solicitor from the firm. “We have got a couple of hundred of late applications, which have been successful. We charge no fee (to applicants) as the redress board pays our fee separately if the application is successful.”

With the final date for receipt of applications as far back as December 2005, victims still receive an average of €63,210 compensation.

The RIRB has so far completed the process in 13,743 cases, with 10,188 offers having been made following settlement talks and 2,741 awards being made.

The board refused to comment on how many applications had been made by spouses or children of those in care. It said the highest award so far had been €300,000.

The redress board was set up to make ‘fair and reasonable awards’ to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to state regulation or inspection.

According to the Department of Education: “The board is continuing to perform its functions including processing the remaining applications and when this process is completed, the department. . . will make the necessary arrangements for its dissolution.”

The final bill is expected to be around €1.1bn.

- ALISON O’RIORDAN

Sunday Independent

LAWYERS SOMETIMES forget how intimidating the legal process can be for people outside the profession. I have no doubt that applying for redress, negotiating settlements and appearing at hearings before the Residential Institutions Redress Board was an extremely difficult ordeal for many of the survivors of abuse in residential institutions.

The survivors who prepared cases for their applications were the most vulnerable people I have ever met. Many had serious problems, including homelessness, alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, mental illness, psychological distress, medical conditions and physical injuries. Some were poorly equipped to prepare themselves and engage in the process. It was important that they were well represented, guided and advised by their lawyers throughout.

I wonder was it right that they had to interface with the State via an adversarial legal forum? Was such a forum able to meet their needs? Were lawyers, however well-meaning and sympathetic, the ideal people to guide survivors through this process?

A Child hangs childs shoes on the railings of the Pro Cathedral, Dublin, to the memory of children abused by religious.

Therapeutic jurisprudence is a school of law that developed in America in the 1980s. It concentrates on the law’s impact on a person’s emotional and psychological well-being, and regards law as a social force that produces therapeutic or anti-therapeutic consequences. It sees the role of lawyers as being capable of expanding to guard the psychological well-being of their clients.

The design of the redress board follows a legalistic model and the process was not intended to be therapeutic, although I’m sure that many applicants found the experience of telling the board about their abuse cathartic. However, the aim of lawyers who represented applicants was (quite properly) to maximise the size of their awards, not to improve the psychological well-being of their clients.

Applicants and their legal advisers were required to prepare statements, gather evidence, negotiate and communicate, and in some cases applicants were subject to probing questions or cross-examination.

In preparation for their cases, applicants told their stories and many were assessed for physical and mental injuries for the first time by lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors and dentists. The purpose of telling their stories and describing their injuries was so that comprehensive evidence of their injuries could be presented to the board at a hearing or settlement meeting. It was not done for therapeutic reasons, although I am sure for many it proved to be a first step on the road to dealing with some of their injuries.

The process bore a strong resemblance to an assessment of a personal injury action, although it was less formal, and the standard of proof was lower. Even so, at each hearing, a chairperson, board member, stenographer, registrar, and opposing legal counsel were present. While it was necessary to conduct the applications this way because taxpayers’ money was being paid to applicants, and the board had to guard against fallacious claims, I have no doubt some applicants were intimidated by the formal setting, were hurt that their evidence was minimised, or upset due to robust cross-examination or impatience from their hearers.

There have been media reports that some of the applicants were unhappy with their experience of appearing before the board, and feel that after they accepted financial awards they were effectively gagged. Many think they cannot talk about their experience of appearing before the board, or cannot subsequently describe to the media the abuse they suffered in institutions because the proceedings are privileged under Section 18 of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002. This privilege is necessary because the board cannot make a finding of negligence, and must protect individuals mentioned during hearings who have not been found guilty of negligence or any criminal act.

The provisions of the Residential Institutions Act 2002, and the function and design of the board, ensure that it is limited to providing the applicants with sympathetic statements of acknowledgement and financial awards. It does not and cannot fulfil all the needs of the applicants, which may be multi-faceted. Applicants who need medical or psychiatric treatment, addiction counselling or education must go to other agencies to have those needs addressed. Lump sum payments to vulnerable applicants with chaotic lifestyles may even have been detrimental. For those applicants, I am sure a treatment programme or pension would have been of greater assistance.

The process of mediation, which is an alternative dispute-resolution mechanism, allows parties to a dispute to design and participate in the resolution of their dispute with a neutral third party. The aim of the process is to allow the parties to tell their stories, discover underlying needs, transform relationships and find a resolution that is creative and not limited to a financial award. Applicants who appeared before the board were treated as individuals who had a private dispute to resolve with the State. They were not given an opportunity to design or engage in a public, political forum that would have assisted them to interact safely with the State and representatives of the institutions via a neutral third party. Such a forum might have helped the parties to find a narrative that would collectively redefine their positions.

The Laffoy Commission gave survivors a forum within which to safely tell their stories. Its report was hugely important, as it recorded and described the horrific abuses that occurred in residential institutions, and gave recommendations. Unfortunately, no forum has been set up to enable survivors to engage with the State and the institutions in a way that might allow them to express their emotional needs, have those needs fulfilled by way of mediated meetings with government representatives or representatives of the institutions, and allow them to transform the narrative of their experience from passive victims to active agents for social change, truth-telling, justice, reconciliation and healing for the whole of Irish society.

Would it have been better for the survivors to have been assigned trained counsellors to help them through the process of collective healing? Would lawyers trained as mediators have been better equipped to help the survivors gain a meaningful resolution? It is impossible to know, as this did not happen.

If the Government and the residential institutions had set up and financed a centre for healing and reconciliation that allowed survivors and their families to come together with trained counsellors and mediators, it might have helped them to start a dialogue (where appropriate) with government representatives and representatives of the institutions where the abuse occurred.

All the necessary help could have been located in one holistic centre, and specially trained lawyers could have acted as assessors and mediators, and been given powers to quickly award lump sum payments and pensions. Other professionals at such a centre could have treated medical, psychiatric, psychological and dental problems, and helped with addiction, educational needs and other therapies. Many of the survivors lived abroad but they could have been invited to the centre to stay for an assessment of their needs, and been referred on to other professionals at or near their homes.

Now that the work of the board is nearly over, €1.4 billion has been spent and 14,667 applications received, I hope the current Government is planning to write to all the applicants when the work of the board is complete. It would be useful to ask the applicants what effect the process and award had on them, in order to discover whether or not it was therapeutic or anti-therapeutic. Did the financial award they receive address their needs? Was the process stressful? Cathartic? Did it provide an opportunity for healing or reconciliation? Were they intimidated? What did they want the State or residential institutions to do in response to the wrongs they suffered? Did they want or receive an apology? How important was an apology to them? Has their identity been transformed, or do they still see themselves as victims?

Lawyers and judges have always played an important role in protecting human rights and ensuring the punishment of criminal behaviour. However, mass human rights violations demand a unique response. If the Government and the residential institutions responsible for those violations had been imaginative, they might have created an impressive centre for meaningful redress. Then, we as Irish people would have been able to offer a model to other countries that will no doubt be going through similar collective traumas, as more evidence of institutional and clerical sexual abuse emerges worldwide.

Rachel Fehily is a barrister and mediator. She represented abuse victims at the redress board

The Residential Institutions Redress Board has so far processed 13,743 claims from victims of institutional abuse.

A total of 10,188 offers have been made following settlement talks, with another 2,741 made following hearings and 814 withdrawn, refused or given no award.

However, the level of the awards was severely criticised by abuse survivor and ‘God Squad’ author Paddy Doyle, who yesterday said they fell far short of the sums granted in the courts. He said the court awards were nearer €350,000 and victims had been rushed into accepting the redress board.

Mr Doyle, who was speaking at a press conference in Dublin organised by Survivors of Symphysiotomoy, warned against being too quick to accept a similar compensation route if they were offered it.

As a child he was sent to an industrial school in Cappoquin, Co waterford, and suffered abuse that left him in a wheelchair.

Criticised

He also criticised the fact that victims who went before the redress board could not bring anyone with them to the hearing or talk about the award afterwards. To do so would risk fines of up to €25,000 and jail.

In its latest bulletin, the redress board said the highest award so far had been €300,000. It has paid out €148.5m in legal costs .

Of the 14,667 applications it received, 11 were rejected and 814 were withdrawn, refused or given no award.

In a breakdown of awards the bulletin said that 29 were between €200,000 and €300,000; 209 ranged between €150,000 and €200,000 and 1,717 of the payouts were between €100,00 to €150,000.

Nearly half — 6,407 — of the awards were between €50,000 to €100,000. Another 4,567 awards were under €50,000.

An applicant who wanted to lodge an application after December 15, 2005, had to explain in writing to the board why the application had not been lodged on time.

It said it considered each submission individually and by December 15 last, it had received 647 submissions that had been dealt with.

The final bill for the board is expected to be around €1.1bn.

It recently emerged that the board had so far spent more than €900,000 on travel, hotel bills, taxi fares and courier costs.

- Eilish O’Regan Health Correspondent

Irish Independent

A BOARD set up to adjudicate on claims by victims of abuse in industrial schools and other institutions has spent more than €900,000 on travel, hotel bills, taxi fares and courier costs.

The average award from the Residential Institutions Redress Board is €63.210 with some former residents getting just a few thousand euros in damages.

By the time all 13,743 cases are dealt with by the board, it is expected the final bill to the taxpayer will come to €1.1bn.

According to a breakdown of costs from the Redress Board Board, more than €622.000 has been spent of “travel and subsistence” since its inception.

Further hotel room hire costs of €131,692 have also been recorded, while taxi and courier services have set the taxpayer back €187,568.

Fees for board members have cost a massive €8.59m according to accounts from the Redress Board, whilst administrative salaries have come to €8.63m.

The cost of an advertising campaign to ensure all victims came forward was €899.367, and even postage ended up costing more than €500.000.

Vending machine and water supplies at the Redress Board headquarters cost €67,538, according to the details released by the Department of Education.

“The €900.000 spend is a disgrace given the paltry sums paid to people who were abused,” said Paddy Doyle, a survivor of one of the institutions.

“People would do well to bear in mind that the average payment made by the Redress Board to survivors no stands at around €67.000. Much of that €900.000 could have been used to ensure real redress rather than pocket money.

“Bertie Ahern said payments made by the Redress Board would be in line would be in line with those people who took ‘abuse cases’ to the court…the payments made to people who have gone to the civil courts is about €350.000.”

The department said it expected that the final bill would now exceed the 1bn originally estimated.

“The total paid in Redress Board awards from inception to the end of November is €800,749,870. The total third-party legal costs associated with these awards, and including the costs for those applicants who took High Court actions, is €148,506,089,” the department said in a statement.

“At this point, overall anticipated expenditure associated with the Redress Board is expected to be up to €1.1bn. This estimate is tentative given that the board is still in the process of making awards and the level of awards in these remain cases may vary substantially.”

The average claim hovers around €62,000; just 29 people have been awarded more than €200,000, and the maximum payment to one individual was €300,000.

More than a third of people who were compensated for their time in industrial schools and other institutions were given less than €50,000.

A total of 814 applications were refused or withdrawn, or resulted in no award where the claimants’ stories appeared not to stack up or did not relate to the right institutions.

1,000.00 EUR = £877.599 Pounds sterling.
1,000.00 EUR = $1,413.90 USD

PATRÍCIA VIEGAS, em Dublim

Ireland1
Ireland2
Ireland3
Ireland4

I found the discomfort of waiting in a side room to give evidence, aware of my patients’ fears and worries, unbearable. They dreaded getting a panic attack, a flashback to an incident of abuse, a rush of uncontrollable anger that would alienate the chairman and jeopardise the outcome.
In giving my sworn evidence I felt under time pressure, and worse, that I was an unwelcome irritation slowing down the proceedings. An atmosphere of minimisation prevailed. It was impossible to present a complete picture.

 
The “board” consisted solely of a judge and a medical doctor. On two occasions that doctor, having had no experience of working with traumatised or abused children, let alone a qualification in psychiatry, was nonetheless there for the purpose of contributing to a judgment on the compensation deemed appropriate for each victim.
Not being a court, it is held in secret, away from the eyes of the community, and no perpetrator of a crime is ever sentenced to a punishment.
No apologies can be offered as no one is there representing the religious orders responsible. Justice for the victim is not the purpose, only financial compensation, which is capped to a maximum of €300,000. (To date the average award paid out to 2,555 victims has been €78,000.)
The award is conditional on them signing a secrecy agreement and a waiver on taking further legal action. If the victims disclose the amount they were awarded or discuss the facts of their case in public, they face criminalisation.
The wronged now accused of a crime! They can be fined up to €3,000 and can face a summary jail sentence of six months. After a second disclosure, they face a fine not exceeding €25,000 and a two-year jail sentence. Why the secrecy? It’s certainly not for the benefit of the victim. There is emerging evidence that the Redress Board re-traumatises victims.
One patient of mine used this analogy. “An adult, man or woman, abuses a child. It is their ‘secret’. To make sure the ‘secret’ is kept the adult will give the child money or sweets. They buy silence. By making secrecy a condition upon payment, the board is doing exactly what an abuser does to a child.”
The elements of restorative justice which are required for the restitution of balance and healing are transparency instead of secrecy, formal apologies, the punishment of the wrongdoers, and supreme efforts to compensate for damage done.
The Redress Board embodies none of these. Its role makes a mockery of the legal system, and of the Goddess Themis, whose scales are the symbols of Right and Justice. It is my firm belief that the Redress Board contravenes the most basic of human and civil rights. In short, it represents a crime against humanity.
It should be abolished immediately and replaced by an open forum where the victim is not only properly monetarily compensated, but where they can have their perpetrators named, and the scales of justice balanced.

Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL CORRY,
Consultant Psychiatrist,
Dún Laoghaire.

JUDICIAL REVIEW of a decision by the Residential Institutions Redress Board not to accept a late application, on grounds of exceptional circumstances, is to begin at the High Court this morning.

The board, in a written decision dated December 19th, 2008, rejected an application from “Peter” (not his real name) as being late and refused to find exceptional circumstances existed which would have allowed his application.

The deadline for applications to the board was December 15th, 2005. The only exceptions allowed were for people suffering from a mental incapacity or where there were exceptional circumstances. Such circumstances were not defined in the 2002 Act that set up the board.

Peter is in his 70s and has lived most of his life in the UK. He had been in St Patrick’s industrial school at Upton in Cork for six years, where he was abused. He applied to the redress board on January 23rd, 2006.

He had been unaware of the redress scheme until late November 2005, when he saw an advertisement in The News of the World. He did not understand that there was a closing date or how to apply. In January 2006 he was advised about the redress scheme at the Irish Centre in Coventry and on January 23rd, 2006, filled out an application form.

It was rejected by the redress board, initially in May 2006 and again in May 2007, as being out of time.

Peter and 17 others took High Court action to challenge the board’s refusal to accept their applications. These were settled when agreement was reached that the board would conduct oral hearings, which took place last October.

By written decision, dated December 19th, 2008, the board again rejected Peter’s application.That decision is subject to the judicial review proceedings which begin this morning.

Former residents of the institutions and their representatives have been arguing, particularly since publication of the Ryan report last month, that many of their colleagues from those days, particularly those abroad, had not been aware of the redress board.

They point out that some were housebound, some lived loner existences and did not mix in Irish communities, still others could not read or write and so were unable to read advertisements from the redress board advising people of the scheme and its deadline.
The Irish Times 16.06.09

Bruce Arnold Irish Independent 06.06.2009

The process initiated by the Government, in the wake of the Ryan Report, is back-to-front and deeply flawed in its thinking and planning. It is as though Brian Cowen and his Ministers are setting out on this new voyage in a sieve; the water is already coming in and the whole vessel will inevitably sink without bringing anything worthwhile to the victims of abuse, unless emergency action is taken.

The process is back-to-front in that the Taoiseach should have seen the Religious Orders for comprehensive discussions before seeing the representatives of the abused. He should have clarified with the religious their position, including his own demand for a given sum of money, before attempting to elicit the demands of the various ‘survivor groups’, who, once again, are in the ha’penny place as they have been for the past decade.

In a more profound way the whole process is back-to-front. It was clear at the time of the former Taoiseach’s apology and was even more clear in 2002 when the ‘Secret Deal’ between the Government and the Religious orders was signed, that an audit of the finances of the Religious Orders was essential. This need was repeatedly raised as a key requirement during the whole history of Commission hearings and the work of the Redress Board. Nothing was done.

The same also applies to two other related issues. There should have been an audit of documents held by the Religious Orders and the freezing of them within Ireland, together with a similar imposition on the treatment of known abusers and the gathering together of evidence of criminality.

Together with the first of these, there was clearly a need also for Government pressure on the department of Education to give priority to discovery of documents. It was clear as long ago as 2003, from Judge Mary Lafoy’s Third Interim Commission Report, that this was not being done. And it is clear also, and one of my numerous criticisms of the Ryan Report, that not enough censure in contained within the final five volumes of how feeble the State has been in all these areas.

It is little short of astonishing that Brian Cowen – who, I understand, was the only person who spoke to the abused on Wednesday of this week – knew and knows so little about this issue. He had Mary Harney with him. She was on the Cabinet Sub-Committee that prepared the State’s case that led to Bertie Ahern’s Apology. Together with other members of the Government, all were aware of the scale and nature of abuse.

Cowen is wrong when he says ‘the State had clearly contributed to the conditions in which the pain and suffering experienced by thousands of children in ways documented in the report of the commission came about and went undetected’. The State was absolutely responsible for all the conditions. It bowed before the Religious, abrogated its responsibilities and let what happened become systemic. However disgusted by the behaviour towards these children of countless nuns, brothers and priests over sixty and more years, it was the State put the children into the industrial schools and allowed them to be treated as child slaves.

The careful shifting of the onus of responsibility onto the religious, by telling them they have a ‘moral responsibility’ and to use this as the basis for a Government ‘view’ that ‘further substantial contributions are required by way of reparation’ is a very weak basis for the State in dealing with the Religious Orders who ran the industrial schools.

It would appear from the statement of the Religious Congregations that they see the Government’s position in that light. They do not use the word ‘reparation’. If they did it would mean ‘making amends’ and ‘compensation’. Since that has already been either paid to the abused or scorned by the abused, it is difficult to see how the process can be opened up again, other than by equalising with the State on the original deal that was made so alarmingly unbalanced by Michael Woods. All that would do is to put money into the State’s pocket and alleviate the taxpayers. The taxpayers’ sense of outrage, first expressed when this newspaper published the details of the financial imbalance between State and Religious Orders, was understandable. It was on their own behalf, not that of the abused. Cowen is faced with a dilemma. Does the State take the money? Does it pass it on? And to whom does it go?

The Religious Orders are playing hard to get. They are not giving any real information. They are, instead, emphasising those dreadful euphemisms, ‘pain’ and ‘hurt’, and putting their faith in a Trust. The word Trust, whether as noun or verb, has been so completely dishonoured and devalued, in respect of the victims of clerical abuse, that it is difficult to see how Brian Cowen or any of his ministers, on the one hand, or the religious Orders on the other, could possibly create such a Trust.

Let me conclude by talking money. The representatives of the abused, when they met the Taoiseach, had in mind a fifty-fifty deal. Since the final cost to the state will exceed a billion this puts the onus on the Religious Orders of coming up with €500 million. I suspect they are thinking of a figure in the €50-€70 million range and they will weep crocodile tears over that.

The money, whatever amount, should not be used to recompense taxpayers. Taxpayers deserve all they get from the appalling governments they have continued for ten years to elect in sublime indifference to the mess those governments go on making of our affairs. The cash should go to the abused. How this will be done will require the judgement of Solomon, the patience of Job and the love of Jesus Christ. Where we will discover those qualities I know not.

I hope that Cardinal Sean Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has been a stout defender of the abused since he returned to Ireland, will give us a lead. They will have to fathom out a way forward after their meeting with the Pope. Ireland has been disgraced internationally by the revelations with which we all lived for so long, looking the other way in deference to the Church and with no lead anywhere from the State. Perhaps, at last, those dark days are over.

2002 AGREEMENT: THE INDEMNITY element of the 2002 agreement between the State and the 18 religious congregations which ran institutions for children was unconstitutional, according to an article in the latest edition of the Irish Law Times .

Titled The Congregational Indemnity Agreement: An Unconstitutional Endowment of Religion
, it is written by Eoin Daly, a PhD candidate at the faculty of law in UCC and a Government of Ireland research scholar in the humanities and social sciences.

He writes that the indemnity offended Article 44.2.2 of the Constitution, which states that “the State guarantees not to endow any religion”.

In 2002, and in exchange for contributing €128 million in cash and property to a State redress scheme for former residents of the institutions, the 18 congregations were indemnified by the State until the end of 2005 against any legal actions taken against them by the former residents.

December 15th, 2005, was the deadline for receipt of applications from former residents of institutions run by the 18 religious congregations at the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

On foot of the indemnity, €745,000 compensation was awarded by the High Court against the State following actions by three former residents of St Joseph’s orphanage in Kilkenny. It was run by the Sisters of Charity.

Mr Daly argues that “since this constitutional prohibition on the endowment of religion appears to prevent the State from subsidising a religious body, in whatever form, other than for a purpose which is constitutionally mandated, it must be interpreted as precluding a State indemnity for the liabilities of a religious body”.

He continues that “the Constitution cannot be read as mandating, implicitly or otherwise, an indemnity for liabilities of religious bodies which the State would otherwise not bear”.

Article 44.2.2 “must be interpreted as preventing the State from bestowing financial largesse upon favoured religious bodies, in whatever form; the congregational indemnity must be considered equivalent to a subsidy for religious bodies, and therefore as constitutionally unsound”, he says.

He says that “the aim of guaranteeing compensation to abuse victims is of course a legitimate one, but it does not necessitate an indemnity for those bearing liability for abuse”.

BRUCE ARNOLD is no stranger to the heavy hand of the Irish State. In the 1980s his phone was illegally tapped by a Fianna Fáil government. Many of us have read his articles about the residential institutional scandals, the church/State culpability, and the subsequent cover-up of crimes against helpless children. In his new book, The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children, the journalist catalogues overwhelming and damning evidence that the Irish State was engaged in unlawful acts of such momentous proportions as to send shockwaves not only throughout Irish society but throughout the world.

Arnold reveals the history of residential institutions and the involvement of the Catholic Church. He chronicles how the State encouraged this process and incarcerated generations of children, condemning them to inhumane torture and slavery – and how they were stripped of any rights whatsoever. What emerges is the State’s deliberate neglect and abandonment of its child citizens, while purporting to be concerned about their welfare and needs. It demonised the natural parents of the children while, in fact, it was the demon.

This is a political work that will give people everywhere an understanding of what was happening in Ireland under a regime of brutality and fear. Chapter after chapter deals with how this terrible legacy began to emerge into the public domain. From the early rumours of abuses through to the States of Fear and Dear Daughter documentaries, the State’s apology and the setting up of commissions to inquire into residential institutions, it is all here.

One would imagine, given the sheer volume of the evidence now brought forward, that the Irish State might step up to the mark and deliver us natural justice, but this book gives the opposite view.

Indeed it reveals how the State and the church were working hand in glove; how their pact was designed to involve the State in the protection of the church. For example, when discussing the broad remit of the Ryan commission, Arnold notes that the key issue, “of Government responsibility for allowing the system to run and for allowing a non-stop supply line of children to troop into their places of misery and damage, was not to be investigated. Nor was it.”

The State here stands accused of astonishing incompetence and mendacity. As Arnold documents, it “made no provision for controlling church assets and freezing them in respect of legal obligations over crimes of the most serious kind. It did the least it possibly could do in preventing the destruction of documents, or the transfer of money, belonging to the religious orders, out of Ireland. There were no penalties against individuals or organisations cited in the Redress Act for possible abuse. All they get are indemnities. The religious are indemnified for their very existence, for all but a small proportion of their expenses, and against any calumny whatever.”

The Irish Gulag will further alarm the public. And with good reason. For rest assured that romantic Ireland is truly dead and gone. This volume will place the Irish State up there with the most oppressive in history. Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany will now have the company of the Irish Church State, a brutal regime that perpetrated acts of unimaginable horror on its most vulnerable children.

But the final chapters of this story have yet to be written. While Nazi Germany and its henchmen were dragged before the Nuremberg trials, and while the legacy of Joseph Stalin has been exposed, the Irish State and church is still largely intact and protected. Let us not forget that none of the evidence gathered by the State in the Ryan report can be used as evidence in any court of law.

Reader, your elected Government – your democratic State – defended itself and the church against the consequences of their hands in barbarous acts. And in realising how members of an elected government conspired to elude justice at the expense of democracy and accountability, we can understand just how controlled a people we are. The truth, they say, will set you free. Unfortunately, the truth of Arnold’s work will send you into shock and anger at just how devious the apparatus of a democratic State and government can be. The shock of this book will come when the public learns how far this State, its agents and servants, tried to pervert the course of justice. In conclusion: there is no conclusion, there is no closure, there is no healing. Not yet. The State has now insulated itself and the church against any wrongdoing; in doing so it victimises further not only those it incarcerated but the nation. Indeed, it will take generations to heal and understand this trauma. The Irish people will suffer for a long time to come.

It is important to know that in the coming time everything will be offered by the church and the State that money can buy. Heads will roll, and sacrifices will be asked for from all. They will beg for forgiveness in the hope that they will get away with the crimes committed.

At this very moment more money is being offered; it’s important to know that this money is being offered as a charitable gift and carries no liability of guilt. If the State accepts this money, it is an attempt to bribe yet again the people out of lawful justice. This in any democracy is a gross debauchery reprehensible to the spirit of the human being and should be condemned immediately. The Irish peoples’ reputation will be eternally damaged by this.

As victims, each of us must own our own hurt – our own personal history. As Arnold writes: “The abused remain on the legal fringes of our society, their legal status often in limbo, still looking, still waiting for the modest recompense that most of them would settle for if it were to be given in the right spirit.”

As Irish citizens we must all take ownership of the hideous public history now being written so honestly and courageously by one of Ireland’s finest journalists. Go raibh míle maith agat, Mr Arnold, your work brings us forward to a truth that will set us free.

Mannix Flynn is a writer and artist. He is artistic director of Farcry Productions, an elected member of Aosdána and a former board member of Imma