State failed to protect children too
If child protection is the primary concern of pundits and politicians then why was there not the same rigour in pursuing those responsible for the appalling oversights, failures to take action and sheer culpable neglect on the part of health and welfare personnel in the cases of the McColgan family in Sligo and the even more horrific Roscommon case where a family of six were removed from their mother after eight long years of unremitting abuse?
One of the interesting things about the Cloyne report is that the church personnel involved were deemed to have failed by the standards they had set for themselves. The standards against which they failed were not State standards but the standards adopted by the Irish Bishops Conference. Implicit in this, is the failure of the State to legislate and protect its children as it ought to. The new legislation, which is now flagged must look to encompass all children at risk of abuse particularly those who are abused in their own homes who are the most vulnerable of all having nowhere to turn. Coralling the clergy to the point where even the most decent priest is seen as a potential risk in need of the kind of surveillance usually reserved for released prisoners is not going to help the child who runs risks that are much closer to home.
