By Bruce Arnold
Saturday May 30 2009
For a week the Irish people have wallowed in an orgy of sentimental breast-beating about the agony of children incarcerated in the Irish gulag of industrial schools.
Politicians have expressed surprise and astonishment, then dismay and determination to act. Yet the facts have been known for at least a decade. Those in power took draconian action in collusion with the Church. They did so against those who had been abused.
They have sought to minimise their own abuse of human rights. They exonerate by silence the legal breaches perpetrated by their predecessors. For generations they engaged in a political cover-up.
The opposition leaders, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore, knew a great deal, yet their spokespersons were slow to act in response to appeals from the abused. They expressed loudly their astonishment at Ryan Report revelations — presented regularly by the press since 1999. They called for re-negotiation of the indemnity deal, knowing this was impossible. Though futile, they demanded a new offer from the religious orders.
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