Several inquiries needed on all schools, state facilities
The most recent report revealing allegations of child sexual abuse in Catholic secondary schools makes for grim reading. The pain endured by victims of abuse in religious-run schools and the sense of scandal that it has given rise to cannot be minimised. Whatever the sense of injustice many Irish Catholics may feel concerning the unequivocal focus on abuse in Catholic schools only, the Catholic community is and must continue to be to the fore in developing and implementing the highest standards of child safeguarding in our country.
Since 2002 we have been dealing with reports and inquiries regarding the issue of child sexual abuse in Ireland. It’s harrowing and hollowing and we know how awful it is for victims because they have been forced to come forward and recount and relive their abuse on national radio and television.
For the most part the focus has been on child sexual abuse involving clergy and religious and the recent scoping report would suggest strongly that the full extent of such abuse has yet to be revealed, not just by religious but by lay teachers and other pupils.
What is clear is that the young Republic which promised to cherish all its children equally failed miserably. Child protection was non-existent in the past. A culture of silence existed in the Church, but also among lay teachers and families. Children had no one in their corner. The state outsourced its responsibilities and needs to answer for that; it’s not good enough to just single out the religious while the State washes its hands.
There are some serious matters that will need now to be considered if we as a society want to truly uproot this shameful legacy and let all victims get justice.
Include all secondary schools not just Catholic ones – there is ample evidence that abuse occurred in other denominational schools and other state-run schools, VECs and community schools.
Include all primary schools.
Voluntary agencies that operate within the State need to be included – sporting and recreational – and there’s good reason for this given revelations of abuse over many years in swimming and scouting organisations. Other groups involving children will need to be looked at.
The State’s own residential facilities, the children in foster care and the children whose welfare has been the responsibility of Tusla and the HSE. These need to be looked at especially so that the failures of the past are not allowed to be repeated, as we know they are currently, in the State care system.
The old adage that ‘unless it’s measured, it can’t be managed’ applies.
On the 75th anniversary of the declaration of an Irish Republic, let’s look at the aspiration of valuing all of the children of the nation equally once and for all.
How this will be effected in inquiry terms in the coming months is still undecided. To only include some would be unjust, to include all would be very unwieldy. Therefore a number of inquiries running at the same time makes sense, delivering reports on the different sectors. The inquiries should be representative of all elements of the Irish experience, across religions and across voluntary and statutory groups and agencies. The inquiries should include an honest evaluation by the State of its performance since both the Declaration of Independence in 1922 and the declaration of our being a republic in 1949. An honest appraisal of its ultimate responsibility is required and how this has played out over the past 100 years.
Anything short of putting all on the table and a genuine desire to address the full extent of childhood abuse in Ireland raises the prospect of the next 22 years being some form of a mirror image of the past 22.
In the future, new generations of Irish people, freed from the grip of the current ideological consensus, are quite likely to recognise and appreciate these efforts to find justice for all, and not only for those whose suffering fits an ideological consensus. How they will feel about the ways current establishments in politics, law and media tended to highlight religious and clerical victims almost to the point of overlooking other types of victims will be a source of scandal to them, if the State now fails to step up. For the victims sake, this Republic should not fail them a second time.