Secrecy law on abuse provokes suspicions

One of the reasons that the Catholic Church no longer enjoys the influence it once did is that it, as an institution and as individuals, routinely protected paedophiles to avert scandal. This collusion with evil is essentially the practice of silence, the facility to look away in the hope that by denying recognition reality might be denied too.

The State has put itself in a position that leaves it open to very similar accusations of silencing, of denying witness. Legislation proposes to ringfence thousands of testimonies relating to child abuse in residential institutions. Records are, under the proposed legislation, to be sealed and “withheld from public scrutiny” for 75 years. Even though testimony was given in confidence, this seems a step too far. It also suggests that all of those who gave evidence required anonymity, though that seems very unlikely.