McAleese calls for abusers to be charged

PRESIDENT Mary Mc-Aleese has called for criminal charges to be brought against abusers uncovered by the Ryan Report into child abuse in religious-run institutions.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern backed the call and urged victims who had not yet reported their ordeal to come forward and give the details to the gardaí.

A special phone line was set up at the office of Garda Assistant Commissioner Derek Byrne for anyone with information relevant to the abuse investigation to make their report. His dedicated number is 01-6663612, open during office hours from Monday to Friday, or alternatively people can write to his team at: Offices of the Assistant Commissioner, National Support Services, Harcourt Square, Dublin.

Pressure for fresh criminal investigations has been mounting since the publication of the report, which uses pseudonyms for abusers as well as key witnesses but which also contains enough information in some cases to make identification possible.

President McAleese added her voice to the debate during an official visit to the US when she said victims and the rest of the world would judge the country on how it responded to the abuse scandal.

“There are many, many children who have gone to their graves as adults with the wreckage of a life behind them for whom we can do nothing now because death has taken that opportunity away from us,” she told RTÉ.

“Insofar as the Ryan Report catalogues acts of criminal neglect or violence that were perpetrated by people who are still alive, then I think we have to say absolutely without fear of contradiction that they remain amenable for those crimes.”

Ms McAleese said it was legally right that the report blocked the names of individuals who were still alive, for fear of prejudicing any possible criminal prosecution, but she said that shouldn’t stand in the way of criminal investigations.

“I don’t think there would be any stomach among the Irish people for running away from the question of criminality. Quite the reverse, I would have thought, and insofar as there are people still alive who are responsible for these criminal acts, then part and parcel of what comes out of the Ryan Report is and should be that they are brought before the proper authorities.”

Mr Ahern echoed her call and while he warned that all allegations would have to go through the proper criminal justice channels, he said pursuing offenders would be part of the country’s coming to terms with the findings of the Ryan Report.

“The crimes that have been committed are so enormous that they cannot be swept under the carpet.

“I would exhort as many people as possible who have not come forward with their story to the Garda Síochána, if they feel they have been a victim and if a crime has been committed against them, they should come forward sooner rather than later to make a complaint and the gardaí will deal with it as they see fit,” he said.

The president said she was “outrageously saddened” by the report but not shocked by it as she had been educated by the Sisters of Mercy and her brothers had attended Christian Brothers schools.

“I had always known that culture, that ethic, that domineering authoritarianism allied unfortunately to a culture of abusive corporal punishment. It was pretty much the landscape of our childhood. I was never, ever going to be shocked by it.”