Resignation garners wide range of responses

WHATEVER response the Government issues to the Laffoy letter following tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, it is unlikely to satisfy all or even most of the parties affected by the judge’s resignation.

In an illustration of just how complex the commission’s work has been at times, various victims’ representative groups have all taken different views on what should happen next.

Christine Buckley who heads the Aislinn Survivors Group yesterday repeated her call to Ms Justice Laffoy to reconsider her resignation, but said Minister for Education Noel Dempsey would have to go.

“I would hope that Mary Laffoy would reconsider. She certainly has much more power now, because she has exposed the Government for what they are. If she was given the assistance and staff and finance she asked for, she could speed up the work.

“I could not see this happening with Noel Dempsey, because Noel Dempsey has got this all wrong. He clearly has not understood the need victims have to be able to confront their abusers and ask why they did what they did to them.”

Failing a sword-falling exercise by Mr Dempsey, Ms Buckley said she feared the only alternative would be for victims to take their cases to the courts, a route that would first require a legal challenge to the statute of limitations which prevents victims of physical abuse taking claims for abuse in the distant past. “The statute of limitations was lifted for sexual abuse and there is no evidence that sexual abuse is more damaging than prolonged, systematic physical abuse. The emotional and psychological damage is the same.

“If we do not, under a new minister, find a way for the commission to continue its work, I do not see any alternative but that we will have to go the legal route to get the statute of limitations lifted. The awful thing is that we might have to go to Europe to do that, but it may ultimately be the only way that we can sort this out for the victims.”

Colm O’Gorman of One in Four said getting involved in protracted court battles would be counter-productive. “The only way forward now has to be in as blameless a way as possible. Somebody has to sit down and look at the difficulties the commission experienced and find a way forward.”

Mr O’Gorman said the matter should be referred back to the Oireachtas Education Committee but, while he said a swift response was essential, he warned against quick-fix solutions. “If we simply try and apply a sticking plaster to this then my fear is that we will end up here again with the same mess in two, three or four year’s time.”

SOCA (Survivors of Child Abuse) called for the Laffoy Commission to be “pronounced dead and buried” and an international inquiry headed by independent experts set up in its place.

“In no way whatsoever should there be any attempt to resurrect a forum that now has no credibility,” said spokesman John Kelly. “We have to go back to the drawing board and we would be only too glad to meet with the Government to formulate something.”