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I see my favourite little Irish Independent literary Rottweiler has put poisonous pen to paper yet again regarding our charity 'Let Our Voices Emerge' (LOVE), Irish Industrial Schools, and is even taking a swipe at me personally in his recent article("Brace yourselves for final chapter in our shameful abuse saga", Irish Independent, January 5).
Well brace yourself, Mr Arnold -- as founder of and spokesperson for LOVE, I have been asked to reply to your article by many people who were angered by your article, and reply I will.
First of all, on a personal level, Mr Arnold states "when I sought contact through Ms Horsman Hogan with these witnesses [former residents of the industrial schools] the process was frustrated".
Considering it was I who rang him and gave him the names, and phone numbers of some of our members who had agreed to talk to him, I fail to see how any "process" of his was "frustrated", and why he would make this assertion is a mystery to me.
Perhaps it was "frustrated" by the phone company when he may have tried to ring the "witnesses", as none received a call from Mr Arnold.
The LOVE charity was formed by former residents of the industrial schools who maintain many people have been falsely/fraudulently accused of child abuse.
Mr Arnold continually attempts, very unfairly, to deny us what we know to be our truth.
We are entitled to speak out, and will not be bullied by the likes of Mr Arnold. I would remind him that we are also joined in our assertions by the Alliance Victim Support Group.
Mr Arnold is patently being ridiculous in stating that we are those who "pretend that the awful experiences within the industrial schools did not actually happen".
Some of our own members went through horrific physical/sexual and psychological abuse.
The industrial schools weren't summer camps. None of us wanted to be there, but when our parents, for various reasons either couldn't, or wouldn't, look after us, we obviously didn't have much choice.
The schools were grossly underfunded by the State (as are our schools and hospitals in the present day). The workers and management were mainly those of the religious orders. It was tough and regimented, especially in the pre-'60s era, and there were terrible cases of children being abused. But it was not all doom and gloom as Mr Arnold continually implies.
Also, Mr Arnold claims: "The Commission on Child Abuse, though it has reached no acceptable conclusion, will nevertheless conclude". And, "The Church will escape without telling the full truth or satisfying those it has damaged".
How does he know if the conclusions will be acceptable or not? To whom will they not be acceptable?
What's the reason behind Mr Arnold's apparent fascination for barking at "the Church" on such a regular basis?
He's barking up the wrong tree, trying to depict our industrial schools as "a cancerous growth on Irish society; punitive, cruel, neglectful and ignorant in their management".
They were no worse than children's homes all over the world, and in some cases better, simply because we had the religious running ours.
Due to state compensation schemes in Canada and the UK, floods of abuse allegations were followed by investigations into the veracity of the allegations.
The conclusions (the Kaufmann, and House of Commons reports), were that compensation schemes encouraged the practice of false allegations.
Shockingly, even knowing this, the Irish State still set up the compensation scheme, thereby failing to protect the public purse, and laying the way for many fraudulent claims of abuse.
I wonder why Mr Arnold didn't report on this; I wonder could it could possibly be because no Irish religious was involved. Hardly.