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Open Letter to Irish Media, the Dail and Seanad Eireann on the Scoping Inquiry and the European Court of Human Rights.

My letter* published in the Irish Independent 6th September 2024`*text of the letter published - edits in italics below.very good editing. thank you Irish Independent!also in the Irish Times (paywalled)also in the Examiner

A Chara,

As a Survivor, I wish to express my personal gratitude to to the Scoping Inquiry Team.

The Scoping Inquiry Report is a solid document.

That the Scoping Inquiry team requested and The Minister for Education granted them 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 through the Report is a sobering experience, an informative and devastating outline of the scale and force of the crimes of sexual, bodily and psychic 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 today 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 Irish Schools system, given the numbers of cases already extant at the time, and the knowledge, since the suppressed Kerrigan 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 Nations 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.

Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley

London

I think of the Johnny Cash cover, originally written and performed by Tom Petty, as a song to be sung by all Survivors and all our advocates, none of us alone, ever again. Our cause is just.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Why Ireland must meet the unmet needs of Survivors of predatory abuse within Ireland's schools.

source : wikipedia~

A short report from EURONEWS, on the matter of historical predatory abuse within educational settings operated by Church and State.

Mark Vincent Healy is a long time Survivor's Advocate, based in Ireland.

I note that whilst Mark's concerns prefaced the piece, the primary concern of the remainder of the report was the 'crisis' for The Catholic Church, not the day-to-day crisis of Survivors lived experience. The Church's needs, once again, cast their shadow over the unmet needs of Survivors. I do understand that such reporting concerns is a matter for EuroNews editorial. I assume they did not mean to be participants in casting that shadow.
~

Leo Varadkar is reported by The Irish Times making the following statements.

There is “no perfect option” for the type of inquiry to be set up to examine allegations of abuse at schools run by the Spiritans religious order, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.

The Government has stressed that the process of establishing an inquiry will be victim-led, Mr Varadkar reiterated, adding that he would like to avoid a “a highly legalistic in private, statutory investigation that is so wide-ranging and involves so many lawyers that it doesn’t report for five or six years, and that is a risk”.

But Mr Varadkar also added: “What matters is what the survivors think.”

He said: “There’s no perfect option, and I think it’s important we engage with the survivors and go through with them what the pros and cons of the different models are.”

In this piece I will lay out why I think Ireland needs to host a Public Inquiry into the History of Sexual and Predatory abuse and Violence within State and Church funded and operated schools, on the basis of meeting the unmet needs of the children who were harmed, the unmet needs of the adults they grew up as, the unmet needs of their families and communities and in a sense, the unmet need of Ireland as a population, an ethnic group, a healthy democratic State and a just Society regarding this matter.

Mark Vincent Healy speaks on this, in 2019.

Please bear his words and insight in mind as you read on.
1. At the time of each and every assault, during every attempt to bully, groom or sway the targeted child, that child's needs for safety and nurture were unmet. Those needs remained unmet for as long as the Institutions and others covered up and masked what had really happened, in order to protect their image, status and wealth.
2. When a few Survivors and others expressed concern or brought cases forward, and presented testimony, starting more than four decades ago, public awareness of the criminality began to grow. Slowly. But still, most Survivors needs remained unmet. The Institutions adopted a defensive stance. Survivors continued to suffer, as did their families, friendships and colleagues, from the fall out of those unmet needs, year after year. This burdened yet another generation of Irish people growing up into adulthood with unmet needs. Intergenerational trauma. Layers of distress.
3. There have been 5 public inquiries since the 1990s, with some progress in the understanding of what was done, and in attaining a degree of accountability, albeit inadequate to the needs of Survivors. There is better understanding of the harm caused, and even still, Survivors needs remain unmet. Unfinished business.

This harm was caused to tens of thousands of children (a chart of estimates of numbers of Survivors across the EU, with numbers given for Ireland) who lived with the trauma and the distress into adulthood, where it impacted every part of their lives...

Reflect for a moment on the cascade of trauma and distress that percolated out from the initial harms. for over 70 years, and try to grasp the scale of the adverse impact on families and communities during that time. This vast well of distress and trauma is what we are draining, and drain it we must, for clear water to emerge.
4. The obvious empathy, compassion and respect show to the Ryan brothers, Mark and David, who spoke as Survivors of predatory sexual abuse by two Spiritan clerics (one of whom used rape as a punishment upon David) on RTE's flagship show, The Late Late, in November last year reflects the majority view among Irish Citizens. There was sorrow and anger there too, an outrage deeply felt, a visceral shock when David spoke of the leniency in Criminal Court case shown to that vicious offender, in spite of his horrific attack, due to 'old age'!

5. There was a sense of determination that the needs of Survivors be fully met, that the matter be fully and correctly resolved, in the heartfelt standing ovation given to the Ryan brothers at the end of the show.
6. The Irish Government has undertaken public commitments to holding an Inquiry into Predatory Abuse within Spiritan Boarding Schools. Good. Survivors are calling for an Inquiry into the entire school system - all boarding schools and all day schools. Because they know that their needs are still unmet.
7. Survivors, clinical experts and advocates are calling for a place at the table, via a Survivors Panel, when the terms of reference are being set out. Survivors deserve a place there as equals, to set out the task of the Inquiry with their experience, their pain, their insight and their wisdom informing the process at every stage. That panel must function as a feed in from the wider Survivor demographic to the process.
8. The task of the inquiry will take whatever steps required to establish the depth and scale of abuse, the extent of cover-up and management of image by Institutions and to establish what harms both of these dynamics have caused, down through the generations, and then to design policy and protocol that meets the unmet needs of all Survivors, those who live, and those who have passed away, needs unmet until the very end, because these are also among the unmet needs of Irish Civil and Spiritual Society as a whole entity.
9. That cannot be done without the direct involvement of Survivors clinicians and advocates as equals with Irish Government officials, in setting out the terms of the Inquiry.

10. Meet the unmet needs of Survivors, allow a healthy and just accounting to emerge, and thus resolve the historical abuse, by learning from our shared history, resolving to never allow such behaviour to emerge ever again. A cognitively and materially changed culture. A healthier culture.

11. The State is not some separate entity from the people, it is of the people, by the people and for the people.

The core social contract of regulating life, of crafting legislation so that the population are safe from avoidable harms, is inherent to the Irish State, and the Irish people.

Likewise the Church. Both Institutions are funded by the population, and both have been entrusted with care of vulnerable adults and children, and both have abused that trust - The Church operated the residential 'care' systems, day schools and boarding schools, under licence from The State.

12. Both institutions failed to protect the vulnerable from avoidable harms, both institutions understood that the Church had a strategy of aggressive action to suppress knowledge of the harms, and that this caused more harm to survivors. They justified it as 'protecting the Institution'. The Church moved predatory clerics from place to place, following allegations or discovery, repeatedly and this enabled yet more predation by these men.

13. Thus the resolution of the matter requires an accurate, honest historical account of what happened, as laid out above.

~
It requires that the Irish, as a State, a people and a Faith (Christianity) work together to resolve this matter and meet the needs of Survivors, including end of life support, support for families affected and other supports, such as education, physical and psychological therapy, health care and most of all the validation of Survivors as reliable witnesses too long silenced because Institutions of Power deem their image and status and wealth more important than the harms caused to so many people, adults and children alike.

In terms of the economics of this, consider the cost of tens of thousands of lives afflicted, how those adverse effect reverberated in the lives of their families, colleagues and communities. The cost of prevention, had it been in place, would be nothing by comparison.

Those historical human and material 'costs' and the current unmet needs of living Survivors, their families and of deceased Survivors families ought not be limited or decreased via protocol to 'protect tax payers assets' for the States part in this matter. This ought to apply to the Church equally. Indeed that was the original assessment.
I suggest that the task is to meet those needs, and to free the Survivors of the burden of their unmet needs, needs that ought to have been met at the first contact with predatory, abusive adults. Survivors have already borne immeasurable, irredeemable harm and costs, and the cost to the Irish State and the Irish people (as tax payers and citizens) of a just settlement of this matter must be borne for Irish culture and society to thrive as a just culture, a just society.

The Survivors are all innocents.

Here is a previous longer blog I wrote about the needs of Survivors.... above all the need for safety to bear witness, to receive validation and to be afforded the empathic care due Survivors, all of whom were vulnerable children exposed to gross predation, whose lives were destroyed through no fault of their own.

Innocents, one and all.
Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Open Letter to Media and Politicians in Ireland - Blackrock Boys

A recent RTE Radio Documentary 'Blackrock Boys' brought up the story of clerical abuse of children in one of Irelands elite Boarding Schools.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/doconone/1333550-blackrock-boys

Alison O'Connor's article in The Examiner, 11th November speaks to this dreadful situation.

"Where to begin with a story that just never ends? It is almost 30 years ago since I, as a young journalist, first spoke to someone who had been sexually abused by a priest as a child.

Three decades on it has been honestly nauseating to listen, first, to the very fine RTÉ Doc on One, Blackrock Boys, and the subsequent horrific outpouring all week of other boys, now men, of their own abuse at the hands of clerics."

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-41003687.html

Vincent Healy, who took his case against the Spiritans to the courts in 2009, and won, as his case was proven, has been working as a Survivors advocate ever since.

“I want answers from the State and religious congregations about the suffering of children who attended day schools, and only an inquiry can determine the numbers affected. The State has a responsibility to secure the welfare of students, but day-school students have been criminally neglected.

He added the State had been “belligerent towards people like me” and said “victims of abuse have been subjected to the rigours of the courts, criminal and civil”.

The sexual abuse of boys by Spiritan priests first came to public attention in Ireland in March 2009 when Fr Henry Maloney was convicted of abusing Mark Vincent Healy and Paul Daly, who died in June 2011, when both were pupils at St Mary’s College, Rathmines, between 1969 and 1973. Moloney was given a suspended sentence due to ill health and as he was already under strict supervision at the Spiritans’ Kimmage Manor in Dublin. He had been out of ministry and under supervision since 1996.

A second Spiritan priest accused by Mr Healy, Fr Arthur Carragher, died in Canada in January 2011. He taught at St Mary’s in 1969. In 2001 two brothers made abuse allegations against Fr Carragher but there is no extradition treaty between Ireland and Canada, where he then lived, and he successfully resisted being tried in Ireland. The priest later admitted abusing the brothers.

For decades the reaction of both The Spiritans and The Irish State has been to 'manage a crisis' of confidence, to maintain status quo of power in an adversarial manner that has prevented Survivors from a full accounting of the harms caused by predatory clerics and those who masked the abuse of children in their care.

The matter remains unresolved. A public Inquiry is necessary to resolve this situation.

Here follows an open letter I sent out today to Irish Media and politicians.

To the Editor, To members of the Irish Government, an open letter.

A Chara,

The recently aired RTE Radio documentary 'Blackrock Boys' tells a truly awful, tragic story. Two brothers, a few years apart, groomed, bullied and sexually assaulted by the same cleric, in the same school. They were unable to tell their parents or each other.

The institutions adversarial defence. Survivors in deep distress for decades. Family life disrupted for generations. A similar pattern took place in many other residential and day schools across Ireland. We do not yet know the full extent and scope of this pattern. That is why we need a Public Inquiry.

The RTE Documentary also speaks to the courage, the humility, the heart of Survivors and their advocates, who work to hold accountable those who were and are responsible for the harms caused, be they individuals, Religious or State institutions and other organisations.

The determination of Survivors and their advocates to proceed. in spite of an overtly adversarial dynamic, where the culpable parties attempt to mitigate their exposure to public accountability through various means, methods we are all too familiar, with is heroic.

It can be said that genuine humane courage is exemplified when those who have caused harm acknowledge the harm they have caused, admit the things done that prevented prevention, understand that defensive behaviour by institutions and individuals has exacerbated adverse life long outcomes for those children so harmed, into adulthood, and to honestly and transparently give a full accounting of what transpired, with a view to prevention, reparations and justice..

That is what Jesus would probably urge, is it not? Hold a full and honest accounting of the harms caused, and address the needs of Survivors.

Ireland is rated in international comparisons as the most helpful State in terms of global goodness.

Why is it that Ireland cannot reach that happy state for hundreds of thousands of it's own children who have been so deeply harmed?

Letter : We should be grateful to Survivors who have spoken out.

A Chara,

The recent arrests of three men accused of sexual abuse of children at Carrignavar Boarding School reveals what has been studiously avoided by so many, that abuse was just as prevalent in fee paying boarding schools as it was in Industrial Schools. I know, as I attended five 'elite' fee paying Catholic boarding schools for 12 years.

Perhaps the reasons for this avoidance are two fold.

There are some who went to those schools, who were abused, though not sexually, and who to this day would claim that the experience made them the men they are today.

The second reason might be that some of these alumni of the 'better sort of boarding school' have been or are still in positions of power and prestige, and their lack of self empathy might affect their willingness to face the truth of their own experience, let alone the truth of Survivors testimony.

Perhaps it also affected and still affects their decision making in other areas, especially with regard to Governance, in that a lack of self empathy runs concurrent with a lack of empathy for others.

It is clear to all and sundry that Irish Governance has demonstrated a clear lack of empathy for the people of Ireland for a long time.

Perhaps the courage of Survivors who have spoken out, even when others have refused to accept their testimony, might be seen as part of the healing of Irish society, leading us all towards greater empathy.

We should be grateful.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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