It’s time to shine a light on other dark scandals of the nation’s past

THE Taoiseach’s apology to the women who had survived the hardship and abuse of the Magdalene laundries represented significant social progress, for which he deserves congratulations.

It also, if it is to be seen as a real milestone, represents unfinished business.

I read over the weekend that there was cynicism behind the apology. Nothing, I believe, could be further from the truth. The Taoiseach’s apology, and the meetings he had with the women in the fortnight before, was clearly entirely heartfelt. In fact, watching and listening to it, it was clear that the experience had left a lasting mark on the Taoiseach and on those around him. He had learned, and applied, a huge amount in a fortnight. Now that passion and insight must be applied to other things.

Back in 2009, I wrote here about an elderly lady, who spent all her days in St Clares Ward in St Lukes Hospital in Clonmel. I’ve often thought about her since, wondering was she still alive. This is what I wrote at the time: “She has been a patient in the hospital for 68 years, since 1941. The place that has been her home for her entire adult life is described as ‘locked at night for security reasons’, and with ‘little evidence of individual programmes of activities, linked to assessed needs’. Her living area is described as ‘dull décor, peeling plaster and extensive exposed pipe work. There were no fixed bed screens or curtains in some areas … The storage space was very limited for residents. Even in the single rooms this severely limited opportunities to store personal items, such as toiletries, and to personalise areas with photographs and mementos’.”

Sixty-eight years. You’d have to wonder, wouldn’t you, what that elderly lady did wrong, what terrible crime she committed against our state, to deserve a lifetime locked away like that. And it’s continuing. Yes, there has been one significant piece of progress, in that admissions to old unsuitable psychiatric hospitals have stopped – at least for now. But when mental health inspectors recently visited St Brigid’s Hospital in Ballinasloe, it was suggested to them that staff might want to move people with an intellectual disability, who had been in a community setting for many years, back to a hospital ward setting, complete with seclusion suite. The only reason for doing this would be to save costs.

Inspectors rightly said this was “unacceptable and not in line with national mental health policy”. But they went on to note some of the conditions in the hospital. They don’t publish a menu, and neither staff nor residents ever know what the main meal is on any given day. There were no privacy curtains attached to the windows of the doors of two single rooms in St Dympna’s Ward. There were still no privacy locks on the doors in the showers in St Dympna’s Ward. The ward was grim, pokey and dated.

That’s one hospital. Inclusion Ireland has noted that in St Senan’s Hospital in Enniscorthy the Mental Health Commission has also raised serious concerns about the treatment of people with an intellectual disability, describing their ward as “extremely impoverished” with “no opportunities for engagement in meaningful activities”. Mental health inspectors said they were extremely concerned at the lack of therapy provision and that residents were engaging in severe institutionalised behaviour.

In overall terms the Mental Health Commission continues to talk about terrible morale in all of these institutions, outdated conditions, the inability of staff in a penal-type custodial setting to think in terms of treatment and recovery, and — crucially — the failure to appoint an overall Director of Mental Health Services. Paddy Connolly, the CEO of Inclusion Ireland, said recently that “people with an intellectual disability living in institutions, both mental health services and disability services, have largely been forgotten by society, and Government continues to fund State services that are not providing them with appropriate care”.

To make matters worse, it has been pointed out many times that people with an intellectual disability, and people with long-term psychiatric illnesses, are at least living in the conditions that are inspected annually. Residential facilities exclusively for people with an intellectual disability are not inspected at all. There are no enforceable standards applied, although they have existed in draft form for years.

That’s one area. Fiona Cassidy of the Irish Thalidomide Association has fought for several years now to highlight another. Prior to the last general election, Enda Kenny met the association and committed himself to sorting the outstanding issues they faced. As good as his word, the Programme for Government includes such a commitment. But there it has stopped. Futile meetings have taken place with the Department of Health, but at the same time the State Claims Agency has been authorised to oppose thalidomide survivors in their quest for justice. At the same time, SoS — the voluntary organisation made up mainly of survivors of symphysiotomy — has been seeking an independent inquiry into these secret and shameful operations, which have done incredible damage to a number of women in Ireland. Their campaign has gone on so long that their main fear now is that the statute of limitations will be used against them.

Symphysiotomies caused death in some cases, and intense pain and life-long difficulties in many others. The operations were not carried out for essential medical reasons — in fact the procedure was phased out many years ago in most jurisdictions. The only report prepared on the use of the procedure in Ireland attributes its use to the “unswervingly Catholic ethos” of the hospitals involved.

I COULD go on. There are children, hundreds of them, who live in so-called “reception centres” in Ireland, and they are deprived of some of the basic rights of childhood. I’ve visited some of them — they are soulless places, kept clean with public money and acting much more as prisons than refuges. But rather than list all the elements of Ireland’s past, could I make a suggestion? If the Taoiseach is serious — and I believe he is — I think he should ask parliament to take on this job.

Specifically, what could work is an all-party committee, chaired by a junior minister — Kathleen Lynch has earned the job — to prepare a report on the range of issues that we need to face up to. It would need to be broadly based and open to submission, and it could be given two years to complete a comprehensive report.

We talk often about peace and reconciliation processes, but we have approached the secret issues of Ireland’s past on a piecemeal basis so far. It’s time surely that we decided to be open and honest with each other about the things we’ve done wrong, the people we’ve mistreated, and the scandals we’ve covered up. Each of the reports published so far — Ryan, Murphy, McAleese and others — have changed us for the better.

It’s time to address the rest of the unfinished business.