We can make our children safer by diverting a few million from roads

HERE’S a daft idea. Instead of building 300km of roads next year, let’s build 280km instead. And use the money we save to make sure that nothing like the Ferns scandal can ever happen again. Let’s make our kids safe.

Because we'd save an awful lot, not by stopping the roads building programme, but just by slowing it down a little. It costs about €4 million to build one kilometre of road. If we were to build 20 kilometres less a year, we could devote €80m to ensuring that our kids never had to live alone with the fear of a sexual predator. Or live with the consequences of contact with one.

What could we do with €80m if we saved it this way (or any other)? What do we need to do? First of all, we need to complete the investigations. We need to know in how many other dioceses there are still people hiding under the authority of the Church.

Not just diocesan clergy either, but all of them, no matter what their order, no matter how high their position. The Church that has held such a central position in Irish life for so long needs to be cleaned up once and for all.

Why they haven't done it themselves baffles me. Why does it have to be dragged out of them, inch by inch? Every one of our priests, many of them caring and compassionate men, have been damaged by the drip-drip of sensational and ugly revelation. The overwhelming desire to protect the institution, and to continue to exert control in the face of terrible abuse, has perhaps fatally undermined the moral authority with which they hope to continue to deliver their message.

Last week I met Fr Gerard McGinnity, the priest who reported serious concerns about Msgr Michael Ledwith in Maynooth. He was doing exactly the right thing one of the very few priests who did so. He has been punished by his Church ever since. Ledwith was believed at the time, although he has now been defrocked. The priest who told the truth about him, who behaved honourably towards the students in his care, was destroyed. That can never be allowed to happen again. At least publicly, the signs are that the hierarchy are now willing to face up to their responsibilities in full. That must be measured and tested with a full and rigorous examination of the past not just in the Dublin diocese, but throughout the country. If we don't come to terms with the past, then we'll repeat it over and over.

But the future matters, too. The second thing on which we need to spend some money is a massive public awareness campaign. Children must be told again and again that they have nothing to be afraid of when they have a story they want to tell. They must be told that they're not alone. They must be told that the feelings they have, of fear and guilt and shame, are the same feelings that every other child has.

This is the real cruelty of the child abuser. Every child who is sexually abused is put into a state of terror first. The abuser always sets out to exert maximum power over the child he abuses, partly because there is additional gratification in that, and partly because it helps to keep the abuser safe. The breaking down of that power can only be achieved if every child knows that it is safe to tell what is happening to them. They must know that they will be believed, that they will be taken seriously, that they won't be interrogated, that they won't be forced to face their abuser and point the finger at him.

Public awareness is vital, and we need a massive TV and advertising campaign aimed at putting children in a position of strength and confidence. But even that is not nearly enough. Education is another key part of the response.

We have programmes now in our schools. But they're not mandatory at primary level, and they're run on a shoestring at secondary level.

Every school in Ireland, primary and post-primary, must have a dedicated, trained and professional teacher whose job it is to ensure that every child in that school knows how to protect themselves from unwanted advances, and how to approach people in authority when they need someone to talk to.

Silence is the abuser's friend, and getting through that barrier must become a core objective of our education system. That means breaking down all the barriers that still exist around open and honest discussion of this topic.

WE'RE very good at guidelines in this area. We've all been calling on the Church to make sure their guidelines are in place, but we seem to have forgotten that the State as a whole believes it is possible to protect our children with guidelines, too.

The entire system of child protection in Ireland is built on guidelines. They might work if they were resourced. But there is plenty of evidence that the system of investigation and protection is stretched to breaking point, and has been for some years. We have to put a lot more resources into this area, within the health boards especially, if we are to put a real and sustainable culture of child protection in place. That too will cost money.

Finally, there is the issue of reporting. The Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, said on TV on Sunday that he wants to create a culture where there will always be reporting of abuse. But it is laws that create culture, and we must change the law.

Right now in Ireland, if a teacher (say) has information in his or her possession about a murder, and that information would be useful to the gardaí investigating the crime, and if the teacher keeps that information from the gardaí, he or she could be charged with being an accessory to the murder.

But if a teacher has information that could lead to the arrest of a serial abuser of children, and keeps that information from the relevant authorities, that can be seen as the exercise of appropriate discretion.

It makes no sense. We must have mandatory reporting of sex abuse if we are to protect children. Every professional who knows about a child being abused knows about other children at risk. Because people who abuse children don't stop at one.

So there must be no dilemma about this. Mandatory reporting is the only way to ensure that information about sex abuse will be put into the hands of people trained to deal with that information. Mandatory reporting is the only way of ensuring that every case of suspected abuse is properly and independently investigated by people who can make informed judgements.

We cannot persuade children and young people that we are determined to protect them, that we will always believe them and take them seriously, if we then fail to act on what they tell us. If we really want to protect them, we have to act now.

We know what the past was like. We can change the future.