Child abuse report - Let this be a catalyst to end pretence

THE shock, outrage and deep anger that greeted Mr Justice Seán Ryan and the Child Abuse Commission’s (CAC) report was natural and absolutely justified.

At this point it is tempting to say that those involved – the tortured children, the broken adults – were finally vindicated and entitled to feel especially outraged but the reality is that we can’t.

We were – and are – all involved and a good part of the anger provoked by the report is a belated recognition of that. We were not angry enough soon enough but there’s not much point in being outraged about that now. We are, if we have any sense of right and wrong left, angry because we failed ourselves and much, much more importantly, we failed the brutalised victims who begged for our help.

By turning a blind eye, by allowing ourselves be cowed by a corrupt church, we now have to wrestle with our consciences and, for a change, allow it win. The report revealed nothing new, it just collated a litany of torture, betrayal, evil, moral cowardice and hypocrisy of the most debasing, dehumanising kind.

Its impact lay in its scale, not in what it revealed.

We all knew the torture had gone on. We did not know the detail; the brutal, savage details.

We never imagined people capable of those hideous crimes were our neighbours much less that they were those who our society and parliament revered and the deferred to. Much less that they were clerics in the institution we entrusted with the academic and moral formation of the majority of young Irish people.

We never imagined that the Department of Education monitoring of these institutions was criminally neglectful, maybe even purposely so. At this remove this betrayal may be hardest to understand. Was the State so powerless in the face of this self-appointed authority?

We may not have realised the depth of collusion between the most vile paedophiles and the church most of us were reared to regard as the One True Church but we should still have acted.

We may have been appalled that some of the judiciary outdid the worst characters Dickens could imagine in their treatment of the wayward children of the poor and cowed, the powerless and disposable. How many children were thrown to the wolves in the still-defiant Christian Brothers by judges who knew that their own children would never be in such jeopardy? That some children were condemned to these gang-rape hells for slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanours is something that will gnaw at the national psych for a long time to come.

We have had many tribunals in this country, we have had even more reports, each set up to confirm or deny moral or criminal wrong doing in society.

We are suffering the consequences of a banking collapse based on reckless behaviour, psychopathic greed and blind materialism. Crimes may not have been committed but great wrongs were done.

Just this spring it became public knowledge that 20 children in the care of the State have died over a six-year period. Five died from drug overdoses, two in traffic accidents, two from assaults and two from suicide, according to the Health Service Executive.

These figures do not include Lean, 5, and Shania, 3, Dunne who were murdered by their father Adrian after he killed their mother Kiara in Monageer. Though not in State care the plight of these children was on the official radar – yet they were murdered.

We still have the unacceptable situation where the State can wash its hands of what goes on in our schools saying that they are not responsible for the welfare of pupils. This is an immoral dodge and must be changed forthwith. Why not ask one of the bubbling canvassers asking for your vote what they are doing about that?

This is not an academic issue as Department of Education is today, on your behalf, fighting child sexual abuse victims in the courts to ensure that the State is declared to have no legal responsibility for their ordeal.

The State, again on your behalf, has even threatened victims that it will force them to pay costs (their own and the State’s) should they persist. A number of cases concerning the infamous former Christian Brother Donal Dunne –John Brander in the report – are similarly being fought by the State.

We all know this is wrong yet we stay silent. By our refusal to step outside our comfort zone and challenge our Government and ourselves we have surrendered one of the central tenets of democracy – government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Is it too much to hope, despite our non-judgmental individualism and selfishness, that this appalling report might be the catalyst that will provoke us and our bruised consciences, to demand that this become the humane and caring society we all pretend it is?