Cork industrial school survivor sues State over legal aid and redress 'gagging order'

Corkman Tom Cronin, 69, is taking the State to court over legal aid provisions and a ‘gagging order’ making it a criminal offence for survivors to divulge how much compensation they received under the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.

A 69-year-old survivor of an industrial school in Cork is taking the State to court over legal aid provisions and a ‘gagging order’ making it a criminal offence for survivors to divulge how much compensation they received under the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.

Tom Cronin has lodged a case against the State with the High Court that will challenge several obstructions to his right to access justice — in particular, the constitutionality of the Civil Legal Aid Act and the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002.

The Cork man told the Irish Examiner there was a lot of unfinished business from the 2009 Ryan Report, which documented decades of abuse against children in industrial schools and other institutions.

Industrial schools and reformatories

Upwards of 42,000 children were placed in industrial schools and reformatories between 1930 and 1970.

At the age of seven, Mr Cronin was sent to St Joseph’s Industrial School in Greenmount, Cork, with his two brothers following the death of his mother and because his father could not cope.

Before the courts, Mr Cronin was placed under a detention order until the age of 18 despite the fact that no crime was committed.

'Prisons for children'

The institutions, he said, were nothing more than “prisons for children”.

“You were detained under a detention order for committing no crime; you were in prison and your freedom was taken away immediately. That’s the first abuse,” Mr Cronin said.

“Then you go in behind the gates where there was physical abuse and mental abuse, torture, and starvation; the list was endless,” he added.

Successive governments, Mr Cronin said, had put a spin on the abuses of the past by using words like ‘residents’ and ‘redress’ to soften the reality of what happened: 

Today they use the word residents. I don’t know where that word came from. A resident relates to somewhere that you live, a hotel or a B&B, but if you have a detention order served on you that means you’re imprisoned.

He added that similar phrases were being used in relation to the survivors of mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries.

'Cold and calculated' redress

More than 10 years on from the Ryan Report, he is now challenging the constitutionality of legal aid provisions and elements of the redress scheme, which did not take account of his imprisonment by the State.

The government, Mr Cronin said, made a “pig’s ear” out of the inquiry and redress process, which was not empathetic but was “cold and calculated” and only sought to keep costs as low as possible.

A lack of legal aid prevented him and other survivors from taking a case to the High Court, something that continues to impact citizens in general today, he said: “I applied at the time, but the fact that I didn’t have the finances meant the High Court wasn’t available to me”.

Compensation 'gagging order'

His case will also challenge a “gagging order” on compensation or redress payments, which makes it a criminal offence for survivors to divulge the amount of monies received.

The former chairman of the Irish Survivors of Institutional Abuse said the most vulnerable people were not granted their basic rights and that it had taken several years to get to this stage where he hoped that “proper justice” would be served: “It’s not for me. It’s for vulnerable people, who were vulnerable children, who are still not getting their basic rights. They haven’t been treated properly”.

The case will seek declarations of incompatibility and non-compliance by Ireland with European and international law, and declarations of unconstitutionality from the courts.

An 'unholy alliance' 

Solicitor for Mr Cronin, Kevin Winters from KRW Law, said the case illustrated the “barbarism of the unholy alliance between Church and State” which scarred the lives of children and women.

“The law was used to justify separation and detention. Central and local government agencies which funded and ‘regulated’ these institutions, were complicit in the abuse being perpetuated by those religious orders charged with the ‘care’ of those in their charge, including Tom Cronin,” Mr Winters said.

“Then they colluded in a systemic policy of deceit and denial, the extent of which is only now being exposed through the bravery of people like Tom Cronin,” he added.