McCoy report delay - Secrecy becomes an ally of evil
The lifelong heartbreak, the unending, spirit-fraying frustration, the sense of injustice and powerlessness are often deepened by an irrational sense of guilt.
Imagine how those anxieties are compounded when a family, utterly physically and emotionally exhausted, arrive at the dreaded point where they must entrust that dependent and loved child to the care of an institution run by strangers.
This can only add to the emotional stress because no matter how confident a family can be of any institution the “what if” questions will never, ever go away.
That unnerving and debilitating “what if” took on a sinister meaning this week with the publication of the results of an eight-year inquiry into abuses by the Brothers of Charity in Galway between 1965 and 1998.
That it took eight years to finalise such a report is an absolute scandal that shames us all, especially those outside the Brothers of Charity with a duty of care for those children. What it reveals is the continued manifestation of a terrible evil active in our society.
Of course the report’s publication was attended by the devalued and stomach-turning apologies from the Brothers of Charity and the Government.
Dr Jimmy Devins, Minister of State for Disability and Mental Health, “reiterated the Taoiseach’s formal apology to all those affected by abuse in institutions operated or funded by the State...”
These apologies are seen for what they are — ineffectual, patronising and ultimately empty — when you consider that only two convictions have been secured in this tragedy, in which children as young as eight suffered abuse, including rape.
In all 18 men, including 11 Brothers of Charity — how the word “charity” grates in this sentence — were investigated in connection with allegations of abuse against 21 children with disabilities.
What makes this so enraging is that, after years of dreadful disclosures — remember them, Fr Brendan Smyth, Ferns, the Magdalen Laundry, Fr Seán Fortune, and another in Galway (Letterfrack) — we still do not have an inspectorate dedicated to overseeing residential facilities for children with intellectual disabilities.
How in God’s name can this be? Did the minister, whichever one, not read the reports? Did the gold-plated civil servants advising them not feel conscience-bound to suggest such an initiative? Do they really imagine the abuse stopped the day the reports were published?
These people did not show the care we rely on them to provide, the care rightly expected of somebody in those positions. That is the context in which apologies from the religious and the Government must be judged.
Already this week Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan reiterated her call for independent inspectors of such facilities. Hopefully she will achieve easier success than Margaret Kennedy, a specialist on disability and abuse, who had to leak the McCoy Report to ensure that it did not disappear into the secrecy and silence shrouding too many aspects of our public affairs.
This absolute opposition to transparency was seen as late as yesterday when politicians of all parties voted to prevent press coverage of a meeting of the HSE South in Kilkenny where budgetary matters were being discussed. Whose money do they think they were talking about?
Apart from the appalling abuse of children in Galway the most disheartening thing about it all is that the public seems so utterly impotent in the face of the refusal of political and civil service classes to even consider the kind of purge such revelations would immediately provoke in a civilised society. As we approach the great mid-winter festival of our culture we need to ask ourselves a few questions.
First, if we tolerate this scandal of abuse and maladministration can we call ourselves either Christian or even civilised? Second, how long more can we tolerate the culture of secrecy that is used to shield indifference, inefficiency, and in this terrible instance, evil?
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