Sisters of Mercy reject most serious abuse claims

THE nuns who ran one of the country’s most notorious industrial schools have rejected the most serious allegations of abuse against children in their care.

The Sisters of Mercy told the Child Abuse Commission they accepted the regime at Goldenbridge in Dublin was harsh and insensitive to the needs of the children. However, they said they would not and could not accept the worst of the alleged offences.

Order spokeswoman, Sr Helena O’Donoghue described as “extraordinary” some of the allegations of extreme physical punishment, starvation and malnourishment and denied any child died due to deliberate mistreatment.

“We are concerned and disconcerted that claims of this nature have been accepted in the court of public opinion without any appropriate examination,” she said in the Commission’s public sitting yesterday.

Goldenbridge Industrial School was the focus of the Dear Daughter television programme screened in 1996 which led to an unprecedented public apology by the State to all former residents of children’s institutions who suffered abuse.

Sr O’Donoghue said the programme was followed by “widespread hostile publicity.”

Sr O’Donoghue said the nuns who worked at Goldenbridge did so under “conditions of extreme difficulty” as the institution was too large with too few staff, inadequate staff training and funding and a school curriculum unsuited to the needs of educationally disadvantaged children.

She said the regime was regimental and did not take into account the fact that most of the children came from backgrounds of poverty and often bereavement, or that they were suffering the trauma of separation from their families.

Apologising on behalf of the order she said: “We accept unreservedly that many of you who spent your childhood in orphanages and industrial schools were hurt and damaged while in our care. We believe that you suffered physical and emotional trauma. We have in the past apologised. We know you held it as conditional and not complete. We apologise unreservedly for the suffering caused.”

The statement did not appease former residents who heckled the sister from the public gallery. Commission chairman, Judge Sean Ryan, intervened three times to restore order and twice threatened to continue the proceedings in private if Sr O’Donoghue was not allowed continue her evidence uninterrupted.

Abuse campaigner and former resident Christine Buckley, whose own experiences were recounted in the Dear Daughter programme, formally objected to the format of the hearing, insisting she should have a right to cross-examine Sr O’Donoghue.

Judge Ryan said cross-examination would take place as the Commission saw fit later in the inquiry but he would give no guarantees about how it would proceed.

Goldenbridge is the fifth residential institution to be the subject of Commission hearings. The rest of the evidence in this phase will be heard in private in sessions scheduled to run to the end of April.