Child Abuse
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THE Department of Education has carried out research into the organisations and work of State-funded support groups in Britain. These operate on behalf of men and women sentenced to terms in orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories run by the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.
The period of their incarceration dates from the 1940s, but the majority now living in Britain were in these institutions from the 1950s to the 1970s, and in some cases later.
Many left Ireland as soon as they could and tried to make a life in England. This was far from easy, but in their view anything was better than remaining where they had been so harshly treated. There are five centres, in Manchester, Coventry, Sheffield and two in London. They are funded by the Department of Education with help from the Federation of Irish Societies. These two commissioned the report in November 2004. It is rather sadly entitled "Helping us put ourselves back together", and was ready for publication over a year ago. But it was held up by the Department, then edited and changed before its limited release last month. A good deal of the funding and expenditure information has been removed.
There are other questions that raise serious doubts about the value and purpose of the survey. The two people commissioned to do it are David Vanderhoeven and Michael Pitchford. The former is a PhD research student at Sheffield University. Mr Pitchford works for the Community Development Foundation in Leeds. They carried out research into Irish Travellers in England but otherwise had no experience in the field of Irish abuse victims.
As Professor Patrick O'Sullivan, of Bradford University, said in an earlier report for another Government department in 2001: "On the whole, Irish organisations do not use external research in their service planning. The most important use that they make of research is in supporting funding applications. The search for funding can, therefore, shape the research agenda and decide the future of a piece of research. A suggestion put to authors was that this funding-driven approach to research might cumulatively amount to a pathologisation of 'Irishness'."
This new report finds that the Department of Education had little close knowledge of what it was funding, what agreements existed, how money was spent and what financial and professional audits were conducted.
One of the five centres, the London Irish Survivors' Outreach Service (LISOS) had no service agreement. The others provided for general information, a referral service, financial assistance and advice. The ISOS organisations also helped with the Child Abuse Commission, counselling, the Redress Board and the retrieval of records by individuals.
Astonishingly, no evidence was found that the Department of Education had either seen or signed the agreements. This would suggest that no effective audit on the substantial public funding of the organisations has ever taken place. This view is reinforced by the fact that, although the terms of the four existing agreements are reported to be "common", job descriptions in the different regional centres differ as do titles and salaries. Also, the actual descriptions of jobs are at odds with the terms of the overall agreements.
The uncertainty is reinforced further. There is evidence of "a lack of clear guidance" from the Department as to the role and remit of the service "particularly with the shift from the Child Abuse Commission towards being focused around the Redress Board." It is also not clear what "shift away" means, and whether the implications of this suggestion are clearly understood. Recent training offered to ISOS personnel in Dublin, by the Department, in "money advice to survivors" has possibly resulted in the huge increase in survivors being channelled to the Redress Board where they are represented by British solicitors. They come from English law firms on the LISOS Approved List.
In 2005 a total of €1.9m was paid in fees to these firms in respect of 178 cases. The sum in 2004 was €600,000. None of this was for court appearances since those solicitors do not have legal access to plead here.
IT can be inferred that the outreach services have channelled abused people to the Redress Board for settlement of their cases. The report finds lack of coordination of services, the Federation of Irish Societies being blamed. But no one knows the role and function of that organisation's development coordinator. The job was filled for a year, little was achieved. The position is still vacant.
Unsurprisingly, the abused want no Church links. There is a known lack of trust, acknowledged in the report, between survivors and the centres because of close Church involvement. Yet there are such links, many of them hidden. They undermine trust because the Church was the main body responsible for the years of suffering of the abused. Nevertheless this long delayed Report recommends the continuation of the services from those very centres.
When asked, Mr Pitchford referred all questions to the department. The report raises more questions than it answers. But that is the way with such reports and has been the way for two decades with the Department of Education on this issue, something to which Mary Hanafin has yet to put her hand.