Meeting unmet needs - Open Letter sent by email to Irish Government and others regards Public Inquiry into Historical Abuse within Boarding and Day Schools .

Letter sent by email to Irish Government and others regards Public Inquiry into Historical Abuse within Boarding and Day Schools - meeting unmet needs.

To whom it may concern,


The unmet needs of children deprived of their human rights, their dignity and safety permeate their lives. Their lives are live within the community. The adverse impacts in terms of human distress, ill-health percolates and permeates, wearing the survivor down, and until those needs are fully met, those percolations continue. A bitter brew, one that does not bring pleasure to life. Quite the opposite.

Mark Vincent Healy writes :

"To have lived a life tormented from the start, and left this world never knowing any peace of it, is as much part of the culture which failed to protect those children as the culture which allowed such evil to prosper for all those decades. How can one even begin to say sorry to the lives who endured such torment, to the lives of those families who witnessed such torment in their loved ones."

The immensity of the suffering precludes apology followed by horse trading and mitigation. Honest and full acknowledgement of the part State and Church and Culture played, remorse, a social and material concern to meet the unmet needs of survivors, and their families, and a cultural shift that makes society safe for all our children.

Mark continues:

 

"In many ways, the response is already late, far too late, for those no longer with us, but we can make amends and ‘do right’ by those who remain. In many ways, it is the only conscionable and compassionate act available to a tardy response by a church and state to those victims still with us, who deserved far better, if we are not a nation that ought to collectively hang our heads in shame for such failures to our own, to our own children."

What this means to me, or how I interpret this is that the Survivors story has profound historical importance, on many levels. Matters of governance, probity, health and education, social policy, development, economics and international relations are entwined. Not least because it involved harm to so many children, to men and to women, a significant demographic within a nation. So much pain and distress that could have been avoided.

I think it is fair to suggest here, say, as a Survivor, speaking for myself, that Ireland as a Nation, a people, a community, a society is at a turning point here. 

 

Will the people of Ireland bear the honest truth about this, from the assumption of Independence, in 1922, to the present period, and will they will their Government to ensure the unmet needs of the surviving children are fully met? 

 

Only then will the history be complete and accurate. 

To those who are in Governance, I say this.

Honesty brings justice. Empathy matures power towards equity. Leave a legacy of healing, gift the future with it by taking action in the present.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Letter to News Media - Report of IICSA England and Wales ought to send shock waves through English Society

Of these two, which one would be more likely to respond robustly to the IICSA report?

To The Editor

Last week The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales was delivered.

"The protection of personal and institutional reputations above the protection of children was a frequent institutional reaction. Statutory agencies were not informed, perpetrators were ‘moved on’ and there were failures by those in authority to thoroughly investigate allegations. Records about child sexual abuse allegations were not kept."

This is a pattern familiar to all Irish, Australian, Canadian and American Survivors of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse, Magdalene Laundries, Mental Asylums, Boarding Schools, Day Schools, Adoption Services, Foster Homes, Care Homes and other institutional care settings. 

It is also a pattern familiar to Rape survivors, Domestic  Abuse Survivors and many others.  Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn might be familiar with this cultural reactionary pattern.

The protection of status, image and financial interests of institutions over rides meeting the needs of those who were harmed. That is the pattern.

The publishing of this critically important report was completely over cast by the Conservatives "election-election-election!" soap opera dominating the news cycles in England.

It is true that there is a lot to contend with given the many crises we are all currently enduring. 

Nonetheless, this report ought to send shock waves through English Society at large, just as similar Public Inquiries elsewhere have done.  We ought be appalled at it's conclusions and be evermore determined to change that pattern to one of open, transparent accountability and a robust program of prevention of harm to children, and others rendered vulnerable by power disparity of any kind.

It is therefore both a tragedy and an act of supreme negligence that Labour leader Starmer and others in UK Parliament and indeed the News Media that they are not on the ball on this. One might have hope that 'lessons learned' in other cases might be applied here, but the outlook is not positive. 

How can Irish society help our neighbours, across English society, to confront this cultural problem?

Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley

Harrow, London, 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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The Pattern : The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales has delivered its findings; again the evidence emerges.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales has delivered its findings;  again the evidence emerges. There is a behavioural pattern here.

"The protection of personal and institutional reputations above the protection of children was a frequent institutional reaction. Statutory agencies were not informed, perpetrators were ‘moved on’ and there were failures by those in authority to thoroughly investigate allegations. Records about child sexual abuse allegations were not kept.

Some institutions had no child protection policies and procedures. Where policies and procedures were in existence, they were often inadequate or not complied with. Inspections of institutions were, at times, lacking. Recommendations made following internal or external reviews were infrequently implemented and sometimes ignored." source : Executive Summary Of IICSA Report.

Evidence of a pattern of behaviour observed in every country that has ever held a  public inquiry into child abuse and the response of institutional culture to the children and adult survivors reporting their abuse. I have been observing this pattern for most of my life. From early boarding school onwards.. What the evidence shows is less a matter of response and responsibility so much as reactionary protectionism.
Evidence that the culture of those who hold power over children is such that it will always seek to protect that power, status and image.  
Evidence that this culture of power will set that priority above the welfare of the children who were under their watch, the children who were harmed, who reported their abuse, and those who were silent.
If that priority stands above the social material welfare of the children, it stands over the social material welfare of our entire community.
That priority stands above the vulnerable within families and  community halls, within the Churches and Temples, within Police Stations, it stands over your local councillor and your local MP,  denial and dehumanisation is found written into so-called Sacred Texts and our News Entertainment Media, within Banks and Prisons and in many other areas of our institutional systems.

Where's our insurance policy to protect us from loss of power, loss of wealth and status?

Defend the Flag.  Protect the Power. 
Who will stand for the children, wading neck deep, against such a cold, cruel cultural tide?
We must give some serious thought as to what that really means.
"There are things that should happen in a child's life, and there are things that should not happen that do."

A child should never be exploited by anyone for sex, and when the child tries to reach out for help the child must be made safe from the predator, and child's case must be dealt with transparently, robustly to ensure future safety.
The consequences, of both the abuse and the malign cultural reaction of those in power to the abused, linger on and on, and on.
Every suicide of a neglected, abandoned child or an adult survivor is also a matter of social murder, murder by neglect. The Institutionalised neglect of duty of care.
Decades of psychological, emotional and physical distress, some of it passed through to the children of the survivors, in learned behaviour and many other ways too that cause harm to that generation. Without being resolved, the patterns and cycles of distress continue to play out. This social silence is a well of pain, and it must be drawn, and emptied.
The costs of child abuse are externalised by those who were and are in positions of trust, care and power over children. 
The lived experience costs - hundreds of thousands of distressed lives, if not millions. 
The social material costs of inadequate social and economic services support systems crisis managing that distress, only to exacerbate it.
Adults within a clearly defined structure and culture of power behave in this manner towards vulnerable distressed harmed children.

This is a cultural behavioural characteristic, not merely the malign influence of a few 'bad apples'.
This must stop. 
Today.
But here's the thing - it's not just about sexual abuse of children and vulnerable people. 
It is about the abuse of power by anyone in a position of power and dominance, and the cultural pattern of defence of that Power at all and any cost. Be it Blair or Putin, Savile or Epstein, Suella Braverman or Boris Johnson, be it Austerity or War, Fracking or maintaining poverty as a political and economic strategic necessity, the harmed are routinely ignored, their cases minimised.

What of the 204,000 deaths caused by pandemic mismanagement, the 330,000 deaths caused by the economic violence of Austerity? What of the voices, evidence, lived experience of all those closely connected to the deceased?

Child Sexual Abuse is a pattern of behaviour that tells us more about our society, our culture and our current condition than most will acknowledge. Some will try to weaponise CSA to distract, to make tribal political points.

I am saying that the abuse of children and the defence of institutional power are two defining cultural behavioural characteristic, and that culture is of one of power hierarchy, violence, wealth and warfare which currently afflict us all and it is profoundly unhealthy. 
Healthy governance requires we acknowledge this and then take intentional, determined and robust action to correct the situation.

All of us. Join the dots. Before it's yet again too late, already.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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