Transparency as a force for real change

Anyone who saw this week’s provocative RTÉ programme on how very young children, some no more than infants, were mistreated in creches will find it hard to forget the experience.

For those who imagined their own children in such an unacceptable, toxic environment the report must be seared in their consciousness and it may have provoked a sleepless night or two.

The images of toddlers being manhandled, ignored or intimidated ran so very counter to age-old instincts that the initial and naturally angry reaction turned to shame and, later, even more anger.

Anger with the childcare staff and managers responsible for the abuse was followed by shame that it could happen in a society elsewhere so convulsed about protecting children.

Then, anger again, that yet another arm of the State had so obviously failed in its regulatory duties. This anger was exacerbated by the standard and by now grating we-are-reviewing-our-systems defence offered by those responsible for ensuring that children enjoy the highest standard of care in these situations and that their parents can believe that they are in a safe, caring and enriching environment.

If that was not enough to make the blood boil, then the revelation that some of the offending companies still enjoy substantial annual support from the State even though they were in breach of regulations almost every time they were inspected may have been. That nearly half of the creches inspected last year were in breach of regulations on staff-to-child ratios will add to that anger, as will the silence from the larger commercial interests involved in childcare.

Since the programme was broadcast outrage has been matched by official assurances that procedures will be changed to ensure that the abuses revealed will be, as far as is possible, eliminated from the system. Those assurances went so far as to promise that serial offenders will lose state subsidies. It is also reasonable to assume that nearly every creche in the country, and a few nursing homes too, reviewed their operations to make sure that they could not be so exposed, that they complied with the standards expected of them.

A result of sorts then.

This latest scandal, the most recent in a litany initiated by this newspaper as long ago as 2006 and reported repeatedly since then, came to light because RTÉ had the resources and determination to pursue the issue. That legislation obliges the HSE to publish inspection reports once a creche has been visited is a very significant factor in the expose too.

The value of transparency, and the power of negative exposure, was shown to be a positive force. It must be a worry so that this malpractice might not have come to light if there was not a legislative obligation to publish creche inspection reports.

It does not require a very active imagination to suspect that similar abuses occur in other areas of Irish life, but because legislation does not demand transparency they may go unreported. Can there be a better argument for restoring the Freedom of Information Act to the game-changing legislation it once was? Can there be a better argument for the old fashioned, painstaking journalism that by uncovering wrongdoing make us try to change for the better?

The future’s verdict

Yesterday’s ruling that a woman who claims she was forced to give a baby up for adoption in the 1970s can sue a religious order may open another tragic episode in this society’s great struggle to come to grips with so many historical wrongs.

That the action may focus on events once common will not sway too many people today. Those interventions, more often than not by forceful, autocratic Catholic clergy, are now regarded as just another stain on this country’s record.

It does not in any way condone the actions of those long gone to try to understand their motives, or to try to appreciate the mores that defined their behaviour, but it does provoke a question — can we be sure that those who come after us will view our behaviour as appropriate or, as we view forced adoptions today, incomprehensible and almost barbaric? How, for instance, will history judge our treatment of asylum seekers or drug users who cannot find the supports needed the break free from their addiction?