Reparation for abuse - State must force orders to comply
Fr Healy said religious congregations involved need to make “a larger contribution to meet the bill for redress” for the huge wrong done to the most vulnerable people. In fact, he agreed that the religious congregations involved should essentially meet half the financial costs of the redress.
The redress system was supposedly set up to save victims having to endure a confrontational system when they would give their evidence. But anyone who heard and watched one of the victims, Michael O’Brien, on RTÉ’s Questions & Answers on Monday night got an insight not only into the pain of the abuse that he suffered in school, but also the humiliation that he suffered before the redress board.
Victims were supposed to be testifying in a non-confrontational setting, but the process was actually highly confrontational. The testimony of the victims was frequently challenged all the way.
They felt that their veracity was not only being questioned but they were being accused of perjury and extortion. This added enormous insult to the horrific injuries that had already scarred their lives. It also made a mockery of the supposed apologies to the victims.
The religious orders involved may have been sorry, but they seemed to have been sorry only that they were caught, and were apparently indifferent to enormous damage that had been done by members of their congregations in the name of God.
Following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe stated that the Government believed that there “is a moral onus on the congregations to contribute much more” as a result of the revelations of the Ryan Report. In essence, he was suggesting that the Government did not know what it was doing when it agreed to the compensation arrangement.
At one point, Mr O’Keeffe cited as justification the fact that the Cardinal and the Archbishop of Dublin had made similar appeals to those congregations. Was the Government waiting for the Cardinal and the Archbishop to give the lead before calling on the congregations involved to make further contributions?
The abuse problem extended over decades, during which all the leading political parties were in power at different times. All failed to do anything to rectify the problem.
Fr Tom Doyle – a canon lawyer with considerable experience in dealing with issues of clerical child abuse in the United States – suggested in an RTÉ interview that the Government should not “trust anything” the religious congregations involved might say but be prepared to compel them to act, “because that’s what they’ll understand”.
The congregations involved have enjoyed a great deal of privilege over the years, and the civil authorities have shown considerable deference to them. Hence, Fr Doyle believes they will not know how to do the right thing, and must therefore be compelled to do it.
Over decades the different governments failed the victims miserably. The current government must lead now.
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