Examining our past must help illuminate the present

By FINTAN O'TOOLE

Who said the following? "We should not be concerning ourselves with rewriting Irish history; we should be making history, whether it is in education, economic affairs or social matters. We should be concerned with creating a society of which we can be reasonably proud rather than wasting time in the futile exercise of interpreting the past. We should be creating the future."

The speaker, in the Dail in 1973 was, of course, Charles Haughey, and the theme was one of his favourites.

In 1986, for instance, he again told the Fianna Fail Ardfheis that the party was not "prepared to acquiesce in any rewriting of Irish history." It was not that he was dismissive of the past, but he liked his history to be ancient and misty. It was about timeless traditions, venerable ancestors, and glorious precedents. The archaeological past was one thing, but the span of his own public life, from the late 1950s onwards, was something else altogether.

You do not have to be Sigmund Freud to discern the deeper personal motives behind Haughey's disdain for "the futile exercise of interpreting the past". In his case, of course, the severe amnesia which afflicts him so piteously when it comes to significant incidents in the recent past is such that the exercise of seeking to interpret the recent past is indeed futile.

But the attitude that he expressed so succinctly in that 1973 speech is by no means unique to him. And it raises a legitimate question. What, after all, is the point of rewriting the history of contemporary Ireland as we have been doing in tribunal after tribunal and with revelation after revelation? Should we not be concentrating on the future rather than the past, on the making rather than the writing of history? In 10 years' time we will undoubtedly look back on the 1990s as a period of extraordinary obsession with the past. We will say that politics in the Republic has been, in this decade, more than a bit previous, for it has been more obviously about what has happened previously than what is happening at the moment. The great political dramas of the decade have all begun with the return of unfinished business.

The gap between contemporary history and up-to-the-minute journalism has sometimes shrunk to nothing. The body politic has trembled with delayed reactions and unexpected aftershocks. Public life has been haunted by the ghosts of past scandals. The hare of the new Ireland races away from the tortoise of history, pauses for breath, and is passed on the road by that cold, lumbering creature that plods relentlessly on, carrying on its back the hard carapace of inescapable truths. Phones are tapped in 1982 and Charles Haughey resigns as Taoiseach 10 years later. A priest abuses children in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and a government falls in 1994. A bishop fathers a child in the 1970s, and the authority of the Church is destroyed in the 1990s.

The most vivid and passionate stories - banished babies, cruel orphanages, old abuses of power - have concerned things that went unnoticed, or at least unarticulated, at the time. News has often had to be redefined, not as the latest sensation but as that which everybody knew all along yet could not say.

CHAOS theory has often been more relevant than political science. Like the butterfly beating its wings over Tokyo that causes a hurricane over Miami, small disturbances in one current of Irish life have sent storms crashing over others. The handling of the Brendan Smyth affair, initially a problem for the Church, became a problem for the State. An internal feud within the Dunne family has had the side-effect of destroying a government minister and disgracing one of the central figures in modern Irish politics. A thread pulled anywhere can unravel the whole garment. Is all of this frantic rewriting of history a sign that things are getting better or a symptom of some deep pathology? Does it distract us from the task of building a better future by keeping our gaze of entranced horror so firmly fixed on what has already happened?

Or is it a process which we have to go through in order to understand who we are? Are we experiencing growing pains or the self-inflicted agonies of a masochistic fascination with an Ireland that should be consigned to the National Archives? It is often said that the problem of contemporary western society is that it is all information and no knowledge, that we are deluged with facts but lack the ability to put them together. But the problem of contemporary Ireland has been the reverse: all knowledge and no information. We knew that there was widespread abuse of children by members of the clergy. We knew that Charles Haughey was on the take. We knew that there were cliques and gangs for whom the point of having power was to abuse it. But we lacked the information - the names, the dates and the amounts. By supplying at least some of those details the process of revelation in the last few years has been giving us something very profound - the ability to activate what we already know and in doing so to make it real.

I think, and hope, that what we are doing is accustoming our eyes to the strong light of reality. We have lived in Plato's cave, watching the shadows of power flit across the walls and taking them for the substance. Plato thought that if we could see the real figures we would be blinded by their magnificence, but in our case we are reminded that shadows are often bigger than real bodies. Turning to see them in their true light, we find that the great figures of Church and State are, as often as not, small, grubby and contemptible creatures.

The recent past is not a pretty sight, and it might be easier not to look. But if we turn away from it, we will be stuck with it. If we prefer not to know how things came to be as they are we will not be obsessed by history, because it won't be history. It will be, not the past, but the present and future. Ireland will continue to be run by the values of the past, as they are listed by the Irishman in Tom Murphy's The Gigli Concert: "corruption, brutality, backhanding, fronthanding, backstabbing, lump labour and a bit of technology." In this sense the "exercise of interpreting the past" doesn't have to be futile. As the pace of revelations increases, the past is in hot pursuit of the present. If we can speed the process up just a bit more, it may soon overtake contemporary reality, so that instead of having tribunals to tell us what was happening to us five years ago, we may be able to see what is going on right now. We might be able to see ourselves, not for what we have been, but what we are.

© The Irish Times - Friday, July 18, 1997

Child-abuse reporting issue raised

By PADRAIG O'MORAIN Writes

CHILD-care professionals, the health boards and the Department of Health are trying to confuse the public about mandatory reporting of possible child abuse, according to the ISPCC. Those who oppose the introduction of a legal obligation to report suspicions or allegations of child abuse are making a simple issue more complex than it needs to be, Mr Cian O Tighearnaigh, chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said. He was introducing a survey which the ISPCC commissioned from Irish Marketing Surveys.

The survey asked 1,400 adults whether "the Government should introduce the mandatory reporting by professionals of child abuse". A large majority, 84 per cent, said it should, 2 per cent said it should not and 13 per cent were undecided. Asked if "all appropriate professionals should be obliged by law to report actual or suspected child abuse to the health boards and gardai", 87 per cent said they should, 3 per cent said they should not and 11 per cent did not know. But asked whether "the current health board and gardai response is effective in preventing child abuse and protecting children", only 24 per cent were satisfied with the response, 48 per cent said these agencies were not effective and 28 per cent said they did not know.

Only three questions were asked in the survey.

Mr O Tighearnaigh dismissed some of the objections which have been put forward to mandatory reporting. On the possibility of families being stigmatised because of an allegation, he said that "the notion of stigmatisation is nonsense". If a person has a suspicion that a local house is being burgled, gardai do not refuse to look into it for fear of stigmatising a well-known local burglar who might be up to his old tricks again, he said. Nobody suggested that crime should not be investigated for fear of stigmatising criminals, he added. He also dismissed objections based on doctor-patient confidentiality. "Arguments about doctor-patient confidentiality have no reality." Doctors go into court every day and break confidentiality, he said.

Asked why more questions had not been asked in the survey - the second question, for instance, does not allow for different responses to suspicions as distinct from knowledge of abuse - he said the lSPCC had not wanted to introduce a whole range of complexity into the situation or produce a confused response.

© The Irish Times Wednesday, November 27, 1996

Church and BBC clash over sex abuse insurance claim

THE Catholic Church and BBC Radio Scotland have clashed over claims of a secret fund set up to pay compensation, to victims of sexual abuse by priests. The row marked a new low in relations between the media and Scottish church leaders, already strained after the handling of the Bishop Roderick Wright affair. Leading clergy said a BBC Radio Scotland report claiming that the church used a Channel Islands based insurance company to pay out compensation to victims was inaccurate, and criticised the BBC for its handling of the story.

They insisted that the Catholic National Mutual fund was simply a standard employers' liability insurance policy.

The church in Scotland also criticised the way the BBC approached it for a response to the story, claiming the BBC gave it just two hours to respond. It released the text of a letter written by the church, yesterday to BBC Scotland, which began: "The Catholic Church in Scotland will not respond to the whimsical needs of the media. We will not participate in media games," said the letter from Father Tom Connelly, spokesman for the church in Scotland.

But a BBC Scotland spokesman said: "We stand by our story 100 per cent. In the early 1990s, Catholic National Mutual offered specific liability cover to shareholders on payment of additional premiums, specifically to cover physical and sex abuse claims. "Our story clearly indicates that the Catholic Church is insured for this contingency."

And, he added: "Effectively a fund does exist - it is a fund triggered by a policy against which a claim is made." The BBC said Catholic National Mutual had handled compensation claims since the early 1990s. But church spokesmen in England and Scotland said that Catholic National Mutual was an insurance company set up in 1979, based in Guernsey for cost reasons, which handled property and liability insurance, and provided employers' and public liability cover for diocesan trustees. The Catholic Media Office in London said in a statement: "The policy has standard commercial wording and there is no exclusion of any claim against the Trustees arising out of sexual abuse."

A statement from the church in Scotland said that as far as an individual abuser was concerned, abuse was a "criminal act" and public liability cover would provide no protection.

The Irish Times - Friday, October 04, 1996

© PA

Paedophile priest given access to youths, say victims

The "informal" inquiry into the sexual abuse of young people in the south east arises from claims that state agencies placed vulnerable youths in the control of a child-abusing priest and then ignored their complaints - By JIM CUSACK, Security Correspondent

THE abuse victim at the centre of the controversy over the state authorities' alleged failure to protect vulnerable children from paedophiles is now aged 32 and is himself a low level abuser. He has been in and out of orphanages and hostels since he was four, when his father was convicted of incestuously assaulting his sisters. It was also known at the time of his father's conviction that he was sexually abusing his son. However, no charges were brought in relation to this.

The father received a suspended sentence for abusing his daughters, who were taken into care. But the father continued to have access to his son and was able to take him from institutions for the sole purpose of abusing him. Professionals acquainted with the case describe the abuse inflicted on the boy by his father as "horrific". At the time, the family had been living in Dublin, although the parents later moved to Waterford, where they had relatives. The father, an alcoholic, died four years ago and the mother is now in a psychiatric institution.

During the 1970s, the boy passed through a series of Eastern Health Board institutions in Dublin, where he recalls being abused in different institutions by one priest, a member of a religious order who might be a priest or a brother and by one lay social worker. As a boy, the victim spent periods in many of the State's orphanages and residential care institutions, including some which have since been at the centre of abuse allegations from other sources.

Although the victim is said to suffer from several psychological problems, brought on by a lifetime of abuse, professionals say he has remarkable recall and does not have a low IQ. In 1985, he was in a state run hostel in the south east and on probation for minor offences, not sexually related. A Co Kilkenny priest, now serving eight years for serious sexual offences against boys, called frequently at the institution with the purpose of abusing boys.

Eventually, the State ceded control of the victim to the priest in 1985, and he brought him to his house, where he carried out rape and other abuse of the young man for 10 years. During this time, the young man lived mainly in a caravan at the bottom of the priest's garden. In 1994, the then 30 year old man was arrested after making indecent approaches to young boys in a park in Kilkenny town. He was charged with indecent behaviour and assault. It is accepted by gardai and the State that the assault was on the lower end of sexual offences and consisted mainly of fondling two boys without trying to remove their clothes.

During questioning by gardai, the man gave a detailed account of the prolonged sexual abuse he had suffered in the south east, including his time in state institutions and with the priest. (The priest cannot be named because the courts have directed it would be contempt to do so, citing reasons of confidentiality of victims.) The man's accounts were so detailed, including the names of other youths abused by the priest, that investigations were started and the priest was eventually arrested and questioned in late 1994.

Gardai contacted several of the priest's victims and he eventually confessed to his crimes, although it is understood, only after having made attempts to dissuade some victims from giving evidence against him. He was sentenced earlier this year after a brief court appearance. Statements in the case, which did not come out in court, suggested the priest had been allowed liberal access to youths in state institutions, including at least one probation hostel, and St Patrick's Institution for juvenile offenders in Dublin.

There are suspicions that from the late 1980s, authorities in the south east may have suspected the victim in this case was at risk while in the care of the priest.

The second source of the allegations in the case is a slightly younger man, now serving a jail sentence for a violent, non-sexual assault on his common law wife's four year old son. This man has made repeated complaints that the priest was also allowed to abuse him while he was in a state run institution in the south east. He also maintains that complaints about the abuse were ignored over a long period. It is not clear what approach to the complaints the State is adopting as the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, has directed that a retired judge, Mr William O'Connell wife is understood to be operating from a room in Clonmel Courthouse carry out an "informal" examination of the allegations. No terms of reference were available yesterday.

It was not clear yesterday if Mr O'Connell will pursue other victims of the priest, who appears to have had access to large numbers of youths, mostly orphans and offenders who had no homes during a long period.

One of the main sources of local concern about the affair is that, after an initial amount of interest by the church authorities, there appears to be little state or Catholic Church support for the priest's victims. The 32 year old man at the centre of the allegations is being kept in St Canice's Psychiatric Hospital in Kilkenny, although the authorities acknowledge he does not suffer from a psychiatric illness. He is being chemically sedated with prozac, valium and a drug to suppress sex drive. The Circuit Court has refused to imprison the man and has criticised the South Eastern Health Board's inability to place the man in a suitable caring hostel. The board, at its last monthly meeting, heard it would cost £700,000 to complete and staff a suitable hostel for people with such problems.

Last week, the man reported that he had been sexually assaulted by another of the patients in St Canice's. This is being investigated by gardai.

© The Irish Times - Wednesday, September 18, 1996

New office to deal with sex abuse claims is suggested

COLM KEENA Writes

A NEW office with a central role in the investigation of child abuse allegations has been suggested by the Catholic body, the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. ICPJ, in a response to the Department document on the mandatory reporting of child abuse, Putting Children First, concludes that not enough is known about the issue to decide for or against mandatory reporting. In this it differs from the 1989 Law Reform Commission conclusion that mandatory reporting "may on balance do more good than harm".

The ICJP believes a "number of tensions" exist in reporting and investigating child abuse, as a result of the involvement of different agencies and government departments, the divergent therapeutic and investigatory functions of the health boards and the possibility of different approaches by health boards. It suggests consideration be given to establishing an office, which would take over the existing functions of the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to child abuse allegations.

"Whereas the function of the DPP is primarily to vindicate the public interest in deciding whether prosecutions should be brought, a new office could be given the additional right and responsibility to take into account the best interests of the child."

Such an office could also be a focal point for complaints and appeals from those affected by unfounded or unproven suspicions. It could be notified of all reports and allegations, foster a standardised approach to investigations, encourage further co-ordination between gardai and health boards, and promote good practice. "Not enough is known at present about the incidence of child abuse, the rate of substantiation of reports, and about the injury caused by mistaken, ill-founded or malicious reports of abuse, to be able to balance the pros and cons of mandatory versus non mandatory reporting from the perspective both of the human rights of those affected by unsubstantiated reports and the best interests of the child," the group concludes.

The ICJP submission points out that other groups are responding to other questions, and concentrates its comment on human rights safeguards and due process in the investigatory process. Between 1986 and 1995, reports of child abuse of all types increased fivefold, and confirmed cases of all types of abuse, in the aggregate, has more or less kept pace.

Given this rise, in the absence of a mandatory reporting obligation, "it is difficult to judge whether introducing such a law now . . . would effect a significant increase in the reporting of substantiated cases. It is difficult to discern any significant obstacles remaining to maximising reporting and disclosure which a reporting law would be demonstrably effective in addressing."

The group said there were about 5,000 reports of child abuse received last year, of which about 3,500 were non-confirmed. Even if only 5 to 10 per cent of these were "without foundation", as against "unproven/unprovable", it would still represent some 175-350 cases annually. The social repercussions for someone accused of child abuse "are likely to be severe, even on occasion savage", the lCJP point out.

With child sex abuse cases, the number of confirmed cases has risen by a smaller factor than with child abuse overall. "We understand that possibly four out of every five cases of child sexual abuse currently being reported involve adult complainants ranging from their early 20s to their 50s".

© The Irish Times Wednesday, July 24, 1996