Letters to the Editor: Commission to investigate school abuse must act now

Survivor: 'The fault lies with the perpetrators; and with the Church, the congregations, and the State and its organs where they failed to protect our human rights, our dignity, and safety'

Louise O’Keeffe took a case against the State for failing to protect her from being abused by her principal in school. Picture: Dan Linehan

As a survivor, I wish to express my gratitude to the scoping inquiry team. The report is a solid document.

That the team requested, and the minister for education granted, the extra time to drill into the data and information they had collected, so that they could subject it to critical analysis, was a sound decision.

Reading the report is a sobering experience, an informative and devastating outline of the scale and force of the crimes of sexual, bodily, and psychological nature committed upon us as children, and the symptoms of same which we survivors have been forced to endure, through no fault or flaw in ourselves, all our lives.

The fault and flaws lay with the perpetrators; and with the Church, the congregations, and the State and its organs where they failed to protect our human rights, our dignity, and safety.

I am sure the Irish people would wish to correct that unhappy condition.

It struck me as I was reading the report that had such a process been carried out in 2000, when it was clear that there was at the very least a risk of a substantive case to answer within the school system, given the number of cases already extant at the time — and the knowledge since the suppressed Carrigan Report of 1931 of the prevalence of child sexual abuse and of physical and psychological abuse of children in Ireland — how different would the outcomes have been for all the survivors over the past 24 years. Many have not survived, and they will never see justice or accountability for their suffering. Their loss is our nation’s loss too.

And they lost so much more than we. Life is precious, a gift not to be squandered by neglect to meet the needs of the people and their children.

I understand that many elements of the current scoping inquiry were not in place at the time and that my thoughts are of possibilities rather than realities, and that time cannot be rolled back.

The work and effort of survivors to seek justice over the past 30 years has made the present situation possible.

We move forwards in this generation, cautiously. Step by step.

The recent settlement outside the High Court on the issue of redress between Louise O’Keefe, et al, and the State, the Department of Education, reflects another delay in taking action, an avoidable delay. The issue is not about money, it is about responsibility, it is about duty of care.

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in that regard ought to have been implemented in 2014, at pace.

That is, of course, a matter of previous governments, albeit each government represents the State as well as the electorate.

The State is practically immortal, the government of the day temporary.

I respectfully urge the Taoiseach, the minister of education, the minister of justice, and the assemblies of the Dáil and Seanad to now to seize the day, to act upon that ruling, and in accepting the State’s responsibility, on behalf of the Irish people, and our children, that they move the process onwards, as soon as possible, as a way to set the most apt conditions for the forthcoming commission of investigation, affording survivors the help they so desperately need and deserve, ensuring that it is not contingent upon the outcome of that commission of investigation.

Corneilius Crowley, Harrow, London

Survivors have been ignored

Past governments including the current Government have done little or nothing to address the issue of survivors from all walks, especially children like my brothers and I, who were boarded out/fostered, separated from each other to a life of abuse, including forced labour.

In response to a question I put in the Dáil by Pa Daly TD to Leo Varadkar, about the abuse we experienced in care. He maintained that he had read the much-maligned report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. 

He said that boys were boarded out to farms and girls into domestic service, where they suffered neglect and lack of education. He went on to say that this was something the Government could not ignore and both he and Roderic O’Gorman could not ignore.

However, when it came an apology and recognition, notwithstanding redress, ignore us is exactly what this Government has done.

Where possible, survivors should consider bringing legal action against the State for the wrongs inflicted upon them while in care.

James Sugrue, Listowel, Co Kerry

Awarded a pittance for abuse

My mother was unmarried and uneducated. I was fostered in early 1971 after two years in St Patrick’s mother and baby home on the Navan Road. My mother was never happy that her kids were taken and she never recovered, spending years in and out of hostels, being homeless, etc.

I was abused while in care, though not by my carers. I also witnessed my younger brother being abused while in care. My youngest brother was fostered by another family.

I was encouraged not to see him or my birth mother as there was a fear that I might speak of the abuse. I didn’t see either for 20 years.

Now in my 50s, and in poor health, I’m entitled to €17,500.

John Timmons, Clondalkin, Dublin

Impact of wars on climate ambitions

Recent reports from the Guardian and Grantham Research Institute have highlighted the devastating effects of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza on climate and global warming.

The reports show that the cumulative CO2 equivalent emissions from both wars far exceed that of many countries, including Ireland.

It is estimated that the cost of rebuilding Gaza and the Ukraine will be in excess of €100bn as well as adding 250m tonnes of CO2 equivalent plus many other noxious pollutants to the atmosphere.

Wars have devastated climate goals as well as countless lives. Picture: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

By the time these wars are over, it is reported that many billion tonnes of greenhouse gases will be permanently embedded in the stratosphere adding significantly to global warming.

Reports also highlight that the quantities of polluting emissions from associated military actions are kept secret and are not included in UN emissions accounting systems. It is estimated that pollution from military manoeuvres is greater than the combined global aviation and shipping contributions or more than 5% of the world total.

Taken together, the brutal humanitarian and polluting effects of war and the multibillion-dollar military industry make a mockery of the efforts of small countries like Ireland striving to meet unattainable climate targets imposed by the Paris Accord.

In Ireland’s case, the Environmental Protection Authority has recently confirmed that we will miss the 2030 target of a 51% emissions reduction and will achieve 29% with current proposed measures.

Yet despite this reality, recent reports from the NGO Friends of the Earth and others call for greater future measures costing billions of euro when the result will have little or no impact on global warming and attract massive penalties to boot.

The glaring gap between the unattainable ambitions of politicians, NGOs, and academics and the electorate was demonstrated at the recent local and EU elections where zealotry and hyperbole were roundly rejected in favour of common sense and pragmatism. 

Clearly, the Irish public will not accept top-down, grandiose, and unattainable climate targets.

In light of the new information outlined above, it is timely for a mature national conversation on the way forward. The Irish government would be well advised to renegotiate its EU commitments and accept the pragmatic advice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to focus resources, immediately and urgently, on adaptation against climate-induced ravages rapidly coming our way.

The people of Midleton and other vulnerable communities deserve no less.

John Leahy, Wilton Road, Cork