Abuse claims require a balanced approach
This time he chastises me for bringing up the case of Willie Delaney, a former resident of Letterfrack industrial school whose body was exhumed in 2001 following allegations by former residents that he had been beaten to death. As he correctly points out, I did so after the Joseph Pyke case was brought up.
Commentator Breda O’Brien was pointing out, in response to Mary Raftery of ‘States of Fear’ fame, that this case was not as cut-and-dried as it seemed and it was going much too far to declare definitively that he had died as a result of foul play.
I referred to the Delaney case because the examination of his body showed he had died from natural causes. In other words, the hysterical allegations made about him were wrong.
I have no doubt that had Delaney’s body not been exhumed, most people would still believe he was murdered.
The Delaney case proves that claims of foul play should not be automatically believed.
The evidence must be weighed. It must be weighed in the Pyke case just as it was in the Delaney case.
Would Ryle have it any other way? One hopes not.
In the past we made the mistake of dismissing all claims of abuse. Today we are making the opposite mistake. We accept all of them uncritically. Neither approach can lead to true justice, or to the truth.
David Quinn
Park Lawn
Clontarf
Dublin 3
