Money is what really lies at the root of the Laffoy debacle
Who said this about the Laffoy Commission? Was it Judge Laffoy, or some opposition politician? As a matter of fact it was Michael Woods, who was then Minister for Education.
He said it in the Dáil on March 8, 2000, when he was putting through the act that set up the Laffoy Commission. No doubt he meant it at the time.
But now we know that almost from the day the commission was established, the Government never stopped interfering in it. And the question that needs to be asked is why?
Why, almost since the beginning, has this Government apparently been so determined to grind down the Laffoy Commission, reducing it to a state of powerlessness, frustrating it at every turn, demanding that it proceed and at the same time undermining its legal basis?
I have heard theories that would make the hair stand on your head that there were individuals to be protected, shameful secrets to be hidden, people in positions of influence that had sinister skeletons in their cupboards, even mention of secret societies. In the absence of hard evidence, I don't believe any of that. I think the truth is simpler, and in its own way just as shameful.
The main reason is money. The Government as a whole has been obsessed with the cost of this tribunal almost since its inception in a way that they have never got so worked up about other tribunals.
The Laffoy Commission has a number of strands to it, and in addition there is a redress board, designed to give compensation to people who have survived abuse.
There is an attitude among government backbenchers, and throughout a good deal of the administrative hierarchy in Ireland, that goes something like this: "What more do these people want? Sure, they had a hard time when they were growing up, but aren't we giving them compensation for it? And if they want to tell their story, can't Judge Laffoy hear it on a confidential basis? Why do they want to rock all these boats by dragging the religious orders through an entire investigation. Haven't all the religious apologised, and, sure, there's no likelihood of that sort of thing ever happening again?"
Last point first. Every time something is swept under a carpet, it happens again.
If we have no real interest in hearing the truth, and in facing up to it, we can rest assured of one thing: in 40 years time we'll have another inquiry into abuse that's happening now, producing damaged children that will turn into damaged adults.
Secondly, this issue of compensation. It's hard to get a handle on the type of compensation that people are getting from the redress board, because every award has a confidentiality clause attached to it. The penalties for breaching that clause are severe, and can extend to forfeiture of the award as well as prosecution.
I know of one person, a woman who lives in constant psychological pain as a consequence of 18 years of systematic physical abuse and exploitation 18 years in which she was entirely alone, except on occasions for the friendship of other equally vulnerable and frightened children.
She was abused daily in an institution for 13 years, and because she ran away she was sent to another place where she was treated as a slave for five years.
Her crime was to be alone, without parents, and her award from the redress board was a little over €50,000. That's about €3,000 for every year she was abused. Oh, and in common with all the other survivors, she was apologised to, by the Taoiseach, on behalf of all of us.
When he apologised, in May of 1999, he said: "Abuse ruined their childhoods and has been an ever present part of their adult lives, reminding them of a time when they were helpless. I want to say to them that we believe that they were gravely wronged, and that we must do all we can now to overcome the lasting effects of their ordeals.
"A new, comprehensive approach is required to deal with the effects of previous abuse, to detect the children caught in frightful isolation, and to put proper structures in place."
They tried the comprehensive approach, and decided very quickly that it wasn't going to be cheap. So now they're going to "sample".
If you survived your abuse, and feel the overwhelming need to tell your story and have your abuser investigated, you had better hope that your name is pulled from the hat. Otherwise, your abuse will never be mentioned again although if you're lucky, some of the children who suffered alongside you might get a chance to confront your abuser.
Why are we so determined to save money on this? Suppose it's true that the Laffoy Commission would have lasted 10 years, and cost about 200 million over that time?
In the same timescale, at present rates of investment, the annual expenditure of the State will have cost about €400 billion.
Laffoy, on that basis, would have cost about 50 cent for every €1,000 we will spend. And we can't afford it?
I'm not saying that it's okay to turn a blind eye to the massive earnings of lawyers in the context of all this. That is a huge and growing problem. But it would be extraordinary, wouldn't it, if the only time the Government ever decided to take a stand on the issue of legal costs was at the expense of victims of child abuse?
And it surely can't be, despite what the Taoiseach has said, because he and his colleagues failed to anticipate the scale of the problem or the likely approach to legal representation. He and his colleagues have been through a number of tribunals of inquiry, from beef to planning, and they surely don't expect us to believe that they were naïve enough to think that no one would need a lawyer in this case.
And the question must be asked if they really didn't know how much it was going to cost, then why, if they were in their right minds, did they enter into a deal with the religious congregations that capped the exposure of the religious at a pretty paltry amount, and left the exposure of taxpayers wide open?
If there is any really murky aspect to this whole affair, it's surely that. Religious authorities knew damn well about the number of pieces of possible litigation they were facing. The Taoiseach said in May 1999 that he was aware of 174 outstanding High Court actions.
It was definitely in the interests of the religious orders, whose own members in most cases were the actual abusers, to do a deal whose only real purpose was to limit their financial exposure. But it was never in Ireland's interests.
In the end, the truth is in our interests. But is anyone in Government Buildings ever going to listen?
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