Child abuse: the system is rotten

THE Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, had the audacity to assume that role in government while refusing to publish the report into child abuse in the Cloyne diocese which he had in his possession for several months.

Your editorial (December 17) asked the pertinent questions concerning his motives: “Whose interests is he representing? Who is he trying to protect? What is he trying to hide? Why is the senior minister in the department, Mary Harney, not insisting that the report be published?”

The simple answer to these important questions is that our whole system — political and religious — is rotten to the core.