Child Abuse
Newspaper Articlessitemap privacy © 2003
Dr Rosaleen O'Brien has completely missed the point I was making in relation to abuses in the Irish Industrial school system (Letters, June 29).
I agree with her that all victims of institutional abuse should be compensated, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer. REAL victims, that is, not anyone posing as a victim for financial, vengeful, or attention-seeking reasons.
I would go further and suggest that the amounts paid to victims of horrific sex abuse should be vastly increased, not that any financial settlement can restore a cruelly stolen and savagely marred childhood.
I agree too that people who knew of the abuses and failed to speak out were effectively abetting the crime. And yes, Dr O'Brien's idea for a Truth Commission to get to the truth of what did or did not happen in the industrial schools is an excellent one.
But my crucial point is that the redress board system is fatally flawed in that it permits a falsely accused person to be stigmatised and gravely wronged.
Punishing the innocent along with the guilty does nothing to help the plight of abuse victims. If anything, it plays directly into the hands of abusers because it creates a perception that anyone who alleges abuse is lying or exaggerating.
We know from the Nora Wall case, and cases of a number of priests who were slandered by fabricated abuse allegations, that people are unfortunately quite capable of inventing horror stories. The motive may be financial gain, or simply to exact revenge for a past wrong or humiliation.
In recent years, falsely accused priests have had to step down from their ministries while the malicious allegations against them were being thoroughly investigated. Oddly enough, we don't hear too often of the false accusers facing justice for THEIR crime, that of destroying, or at least attempting to destroy, another human being's reputation and entire life with calculated vicious lies.
To her credit, a person who had fabricated a rape allegation in the Nora Wall case later publicly admitted lying about what she allegedly saw. Ms Wall, though completely innocent of any crime, had to endure a hell on earth of vilification and hysteria-driven hatred before the High Court declared a miscarriage of Justice in her case.
Allegations of mass graves, midnight burials, and actual murders by Christian Brothers at Letterfrack Industrial School were likewise exposed as hideous lies and fabrications.
Despite this, the British tabloid newspaper that "exclusively" reported this alleged Nazi-style carry-on by what it called "a foul sect" has yet to retract its report.
Once upon a time, in the Hidden Ireland, people looked the other way when men and women in black committed unspeakable crimes. Will we now look the other way-and descend into a similar trough of denial when frauds and chancers vilify innocent care workers?
JOHN FITZGERALD,