A common thread of official neglect links the stories of children who were mistreated in institutional care in the past, to the up-to-date newspaper reports which express the frustration of the judiciary, confronted with the immediate situation of young people who require safe and secure accommodation along with therapeutic care. Perhaps the ultimate tragedy which has emerged from the many stories of the mistreatment of children in institutional care in Ireland is that there is much evidence to support the view that there is still no adequate provision by the state for children who are disturbed, neglected and without proper care. A report in the Irish Times dated 23rd June 2001 graphically illustrates this point.
According to this article, a fifteen year old boy from a dysfunctional family was detained in St. Patrick's Institution for a month, following a court appearance for minor criminal activities. The boy, who has intellectual and speech defects and has had little schooling, had already spent two nights in Kevin Street Garda Station, in the absence of anywhere else for him to go. Mr. Justice Kelly said that because his primary concern was the preservation of life, he was sending the boy to St. Patrick's. This institution normally caters for convicted young offenders from the age of sixteen, but several disturbed children have been sent there on foot of court orders because there is a lack of secure therapeutic places. The boy was one of five children in a family with no parenting skills, the report alleged. His mother suffered from drinking and depression problems, and was unable and unwilling to look after her son. Just a month previously, he was sent to an assessment centre but ran away within three days. In the past four months he has been charged with thirteen offences, including public order offences, criminal damage, larceny and road traffic offences. He was engaged in car theft and was involved in a serious road accident earlier this year, after which he was in a coma for three weeks. Council for the boy asked for orders to provide secure accommodation, as returning to his family was not an option, and it was unlikely he had the intellectual ability to withstand a period in St. Patrick's. Mr. Justice Kelly repeated his criticism of the juvenile criminal justice system describing it as a "shambles and chaotic". He directed the boy to be detained in St. Patrick's for a month, and ordered that a comprehensive physical, mental, psychological and social aspects report be prepared and given to the court. (Irish Times 23.6.2001:4)
This article, one of many in recent times, highlights the ongoing necessity to provide suitable accommodation, access to educational facilities, psychological assessment and healthcare for children whose families are unable to provide for them. It is evident that the boy referred to in the above report had a criminal record, but it is equally clear that St. Patrick's Institution is not suitable accommodation for a fifteen year old boy who clearly needs stability, security and psychological counselling. The recommendations of the Kennedy Report recognised that there must be a mechanism for meeting these needs, but it is evident that more than thirty years later, there is no adequate system in place that might have prevented this child and many others in similar situations slipping from problematic behaviour into criminality. It could be argued that Irish society has learned little from the past in terms of the appalling and tragic stories that have emerged in recent years regarding the mistreatment of children in industrial schools and reformatories throughout Ireland. The official reports which assessed the conditions which pertained in these institutions, and made thorough and laudable recommendations for the provision of improved childcare; and also the stories, both fictional and true, which depict the cruelty of a system more geared towards the efficient administration of an authoritarian system than the nurturing of vulnerable children, have not succeeded in ensuring that the institutional system of the past has been replaced with an enlightened and caring approach to young people at risk.
In a statement issued on the 11th May 1999 An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD, on behalf of the government, apologised to the victims of childhood abuse in industrial schools and acknowledged the role and responsibility of the Irish State in the provision of services to children. This dramatic and unprecedented statement, along with an undertaking to establish a Commission of Inquiry into Childhood Abuse, spoke volumes about the scale of child-abuse in industrial schools and reformatories in Ireland. It was also a clear indication of the enormity of the crimes committed against tens of thousands of vulnerable children, and raised questions about how this happened. (Raftery & O'Sulllivan 1999:3)
The innocent
victims of church and state had waited, many of them for four or more decades,
for the suffering they had endured in these institutions to be exposed and
acknowledged. This was done primarily through two TV programmes, a docudrama,
Dear Daughter, first broadcast on RTE in 1997 and States of Fear, which was
broadcast on the 27th April, 4th May and 11th May 1999. Both programmes provoked
enormous public response, and outrage was expressed continuously for weeks afterwards
in the newspapers and in many radio broadcasts. A deluge of phone calls after
both programmes revealed the full extent of the abuse, and the Government apology
was perceived as a direct response to this public outrage. Although hardly voluntary,
the apology and the series of measures put in place by the Government to deal
with the adult victims of child abuse, including police investigations into
many of the institutions, have in some way helped to bring closure on a past
that has brought shame on both Church and State.
In the two
years since the Government's historic apology, numerous cases of child abuse,
both within state institutions and also in the home, have come before the courts.
The onus of shame, which previously was inappropriately felt by the victims,
is now
rightly targeted at the perpetrators of this abuse, and the organisations and
systems which condoned and sometimes facilitated it.
A front
page report in the Irish Independent dated Monday 18th June 2001 indicated that
the Catholic Church will pay up to £90 million into a special state sex
abuse fund, as part of a deal that allows religious orders to avoid being sued
by many of their victims. In return for this money, the State is extending immunity
from civil action to priests brothers and nuns who abused children in residential
institutions, if the victims of abuse accept compensation from the fund. There
are now in excess of five hundred cases of abuse pending, and many hundreds
of these have been lodged in the final weeks leading up to the June 2001 deadline.
Under this new proposal victims will be legally barred from proceeding with
their court action if they accept payout from the new Government-backed Residential
Institutions Redress Board.
Effectively, this no-fault compensation system means that members of religious orders will not have to face their victims in court and in addition the Catholic hierarchy will not suffer the possible public relations meltdown of fighting these cases through the courts. In negotiation with the Department of Education, church leaders have succeeded in having the compensation body called a 'board' instead of a tribunal. Anyone who was abused in an industrial school, reformatory, children's home or hospital is eligible to apply for compensation. The hierarchy exerted pressure on the government to extend these arrangements to victims of sex abuse in day schools and other church-run institutions, pleading that these victims should also be allowed the opportunity to get financial redress without being put through the stress and uncertainty of an adversarial court hearing. However, the government has, to date resisted efforts to extend these arrangements.
The government bill, published on Wednesday 13th June 2001, set up a board to compensate people abused in reformatories and industrial schools. However, it fails to embrace essential elements of An Taoiseach's apology and falls short of his pledge to provide "a forum that will inspire the confidence of victims", according to lawyers acting on behalf of the victims. (Doyle 2001:2.3) The spirit of openness promised by Bertie Ahern appeared to be conspicuously lacking on the eve of publication of the bill when, only twenty-four hours before its publication, lawyers representing the victims were provided with an incomplete document from the department, even though the entire document was with the printers at the time. John Kelly, the spokesperson for the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, said that the department had not listened to them and urged victims to boycott the proposed Residential Institutions Redress Board. According to the lawyers, the bill was supposed to provide the victims with an alternative to High Court litigation, thereby reducing their trauma, but this hasn't happened. Victims have no option but to initiate legal proceedings. It was described as having a "yellow pack" approach to the proposed awards procedures because it does not offer parity with High Court awards. Legal sources argued that the department will have ultimate control over the proposed compensation machinery because it will be the defendant and it will also select judges. The awards paid out by the tribunal will not be based on assessments by the courts, but on regulations drawn up by the minister which have yet to be released. (Doyle 2001:2.3) A review committee, also controlled by the minister, will hear appeals against awards. It is proposed that different types of abuse will attract standard compensation amounts from the tribunal. However, the government did not make provisions for those who were physically abused, and this distinction between physical and sexual abuse has been greeted with anger by those who spent their childhood in institutional care. They have always believed there to be a strong connection between the two forms of abuse, and many of the boys in particular experienced both simultaneously at the hands of their carers. (Raftery & O'Sullivan 1999:242)
There is no doubt that the legal profession have a key role to play in the unfolding drama regarding compensation and acknowledgment of abuse by both Church and State. The long delay between when the abuse occurred and when legal proceedings begin makes the task extremely complex. To continue to delay legal proceedings would favour all parties, except the victims. The argument of the church authorities for a wider range of eligible victims than the state was willing to accommodate could be seen as a delaying mechanism. The volume of cases too presents a challenge to everyone involved. Victims are not a homogenous group and comprise an array of deeply personal experiences and unique characteristics. The onus is on the legal profession to work co-operatively with both church and state to find a comprehensive long-term solution to the issue of liability in this extremely sensitive and complex problem, and to work with claimants to find lasting solutions that address the healing needs of the victims of abuse.
The outline
terms of reference for the Commission to Inquire into Childhood Abuse, chaired
by Ms. Justice Mary Laffoy, include providing a sympathetic forum where victims
can describe their abuse, to ascertain the nature and extent of the abuse suffered,
and to produce a report which would include recommendations to ensure that such
abuse will not occur in the future. To date, however, there has been little
improvement in system which is wholly inadequate to deal with the number of
vulnerable children who need secure care.
The potential for child abuse is a constant reality, and this is borne out by
research
published in a Focus Ireland report last year. Researchers talked to young people
coming out of special schools, foster care, residential care and probation hostels.
They looked at the circumstances of these young people six months after leaving
and then again two years later. What they found was, by any standard, quite
shocking. The young people tracked by the researchers were, almost by definition,
the ones whose circumstances were so bad they could not be entirely ignored
by the State, and unfortunately statistics indicate that they are the tip of
a much larger iceberg of child poverty and neglect. 41% of those leaving health
board care had suffered sexual abuse. The same proportion had experienced domestic
violence. A large section had physical or learning disabilities or mental health
problems such as clinical depression, eating disorders, or suicidal tendencies.
25% of the young people studied were placed in the kind of care which was inappropriate
to their needs. Children suffering severe trauma because of sexual abuse were
placed in secure detention units, as if they were the perpetrators rather than
the victims of a crime. (O'Toole 2000:7)
The researchers found that when many of these young people leave the special school or hostel to which they have been sent very many of them become homeless, and are involved in addiction, exploitation and crime. After two years, 40% of the young people who had been to special schools and 30% of those coming out of health board care had problems with addiction. 14% of those who had been in health board care were thought to have been involved in prostitution, and 68% of those leaving health board and a third of those coming out of special schools had experienced homelessness. 66% of those who left special schools ended up in prison or another place of detention within three years. (Doyle 2001:5.2) These appalling statistics reveal the ambivalent attitude, the lack of sufficient funding, and the lack of political will towards the care of vulnerable children which still prevails in Ireland; and it clearly undermines the sincerity of the public apologies offered by politicians to the victims of past abuse.