Childcare Abuse Inquiry Results

Liber8or

Not sure which category this report falls into, but we shall try politics.

60 Years of history documented in over 2500 pages, which has cost the Irish Tax Payer 65 million euro, will be released today as a result of a documentary aired on RTE in 2000.

The report will, primarily, deal with abuse of children under the control of the Catholic Church and their institutions.

However, what will it mean to the general public? Clearly, the victims of this abuse will, perhaps, get some form of closure, but where should the state go from here?

Is it the government's responsibility to no longer allow Catholic Institutions to impose themselves upon State affairs such as education? Do we need more regulatory bodies to check up on the remaining institutions still in place? And, how should these victims receive assistance? State funds or Catholic Church funds?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0520/abuse.html

Liber8or

EDIT: Could a Moderator please change the title to "Sexual/Physical Abuse Inquiry Results" please? That would be more accurate.

LordSutch

The commission has received thousands of complaints of Emotional, Physical and Sexual trauma inflicted on children who were in care (over the course of 60 years). I would suggest the title of this thread should be; "Childcare abuse inquiry results" > this then covers all aspects.

Nodin

Liber8or wrote: »

Is it the government's responsibility to no longer allow Catholic Institutions to impose themselves upon State affairs such as education? Do we need more regulatory bodies to check up on the remaining institutions still in place? And, how should these victims receive assistance? State funds or Catholic Church funds?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0520/abuse.html

Well for starters, schools need to be made secular, regardless of this.

As regards assistance, the Churches liability has been capped. Hopefully there might be enough in this report to have that revisited.

Fratton Fred

Nodin wrote: »

Well for starters, schools need to be made secular, regardless of this.

As regards assistance, the Churches liability has been capped. Hopefully there might be enough in this report to have that revisited.

I agree totally.

how is the church's liability capped though? I thought it was illegal to try and cap liability for personal injury?

Nodin

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I agree totally.

how is the church's liability capped though? I thought it was illegal to try and cap liability for personal injury?

Former Education Minister Michael Woods agreed to cap the church's liability at €128m in the expectation that the final bill would be around €500m and in recognition of the state's own negligence. But with more than 14,000 claims for compensation, the overall bill is expected to top €1.1bn, which means the State will pay 90pc of the cost.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/details-of-properties-to-cover-abuse-compensation-revealed-1653755.html

I'm unsure if that prevents individual actions in the future, however.

Elliemental

The church`s liability is capped? This can`t be right?

Nodin

Elliemental wrote: »

The church`s liability is capped? This can`t be right?

It's certainly not right in one sense. However the agreement of 2002 is apparently shut.

RELIGIOUS orders that ran children’s institutions where abuses took place will not be asked to contribute more to the state compensation fund despite the likelihood that the cost of victims’ claims will increase.

The 18 orders struck a deal with the State to give €128 million to the fund through a combination of cash, property and counselling services. The deal will not be reviewed.

Fine Gael’s education spokesman, Brian Hayes, criticised the Government’s handling of the deal, saying: “It was probably one of the most reckless, incompetent and financially illiterate deals that was ever struck.”

A spokesman for the Department of Education, which set up the RIRB, said there was no question of the deal being renegotiated and the Christian Brothers, one of the orders involved, also said the issue would not be revisited.

http://78.47.125.177/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1041:religious-orders-not-to-add-to-compensation-deal-&catid=50:education-news&Itemid=158
(My bold)

I'd be interested in seeing the workings and costings of that agreement examined by a number of independent auditors.

silverharp

When listening to the 1pm news All I can say is shame on organisations like the Christian Brothers fighting this all the way. They should have cooperated openly from the start.

snubbleste

This is currently the main headline on www.bbcnews.com website
Probe says Irish children 'abused'
An inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland has found that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys institutions.

Utterly damning and shameful

Can'tseeme

Words simply fail you regardig this. It is just horrendous what was going on and it makes you wonder, where does the catholic church in Ireland go from here?

Nodin

I've a few ideas on that, and indeed on what it can do when it gets there.

But, to the matter at hand.....

"The reformatory and industrial schools depended on rigid control by means of severe corporal punishment and the fear of such punishment," it said.
"The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the culture of the schools by successive generations of brothers, priests and nuns.
"It was systemic and not the result of individual breaches by persons who operated outside lawful and acceptable boundaries.
"Excesses of punishment generated the fear that the school authorities believed to be essential for the maintenance of order."

Its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions - in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8059826.stm

The summary - some 30 pages of it. My bold.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0520/childabuse-executivesummary.pdf

edit @ 15.51- I've given the summary a once over. Its grim, grim stuff.

Fratton Fred

Personally i think the government would be within it's rights to say "**** ya, you openly took on the role of Guardian of the faith, which then became a "Special Position" in the constitution. This constitutional right was abused.

Pay your own ****ing compensation.

It's not just Ireland and it's not just the RC Church either http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7982000/7982021.stm

r0nanf

breakingnews.ie wrote:

Abuse was rarely reported to the State authorities but on the rare occasion the Department of Education was informed, it colluded with the religious orders in the culture of silence.

The Department generally dismissed or ignored sexual abuse complaints and never brought them to the attention of the Garda.

Whatever about the Church - who I could not hold more contempt for - this report should shake this country to the core as it was a governmental department that colluded in the grooming/placement of children for sexual predators.

Btw, those of you who have blithely disregarded the "few bad apples" within the church are welcome to post on how you can continue to support a society that created, sheltered and supported a huge number of child rapists.

Valentia

Mr Justice Sean Ryan, said: “For all that the report tries to do, it does not try to balance what happened to children in institutions against what might have become of them if they had not been taken into care in the first place.”

That seems like a very very odd thing to say.

r0nanf

If they hadn't of been taken into custody?? Seeing as survivors mention scavenging food from bins and animal feed while in custody, I can't see how not been taken into custody would have been worse. Disgusted

Jesus1222

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Personally i think the government would be within it's rights to say "**** ya, you openly took on the role of Guardian of the faith, which then became a "Special Position" in the constitution. This constitutional right was abused.

Pay your own ****ing compensation.

Agreed. It was capped at 128 million after a "deal" struck by Mary Harney. I think the State was worried it would be stuck for the whole bill as it was ultimately responsible for allowing these sinister organisations to (literally in some cases) get away with murder.

The regularity of serious abuse in terms of how often it happened and how many children it happened to won't ever be fully known. I know of somebody who had to spend time in one of these concentration camps and they just don't want to know. They shut it out of their mind as best they can. Compensation is meaningless to them. They are not rich, by any means.

The level if evil involved is unbelievable. According to what I heard earlier certain institutions actively pursued children of destitute families so that their workhouses would be more economically viable with the captitation received from the State. The only solace for those who somehow retained their belief in God is that the perpetrators are in Hell.

Darragh29

I'm probably one of the people on boards who is unfortunately able to recall the child abuse identified in the report, first hand, having gone to a Christian Brother Primary School where one Christian Brother who taught our class was implicated in the death of a classmate who was 11 years old at the time.

If people/parents knew what used to go on back then, teachers would have been thrown from the 3rd floor windows of their classrooms.

markesmith

Another small step on the long road to Ireland becoming the Godless country that I for one hope it to someday be.

Jesus1222

I was at very tail end of the period where Christian Brothers had a strong presence in our school. My school was one of the last in my region to have such an influence and to be fair the few Christian Brothers who were there at the time they were brilliant educators and I remember them fondly. You have my sympathy though.

Darragh29 wrote: »

I'm probably one of the people on boards who is unfortunately able to recall the child abuse identified in the report, first hand, having gone to a Christian Brother Primary School where one Christian Brother who taught our class was implicated in the death of a classmate who was 11 years old at the time.

If people/parents knew what used to go on back then, teachers would have been thrown from the 3rd floor windows of their classrooms.

GuanYin

Can someone explain to me why they are not prosecuting these individuals?

To put things in context, how can these actions be deemed any lesser than the cults and dangerous organizations out there that don't get recognition in Ireland (eg. Scientology).

Jesus1222

Perhaps many more than we would think have been prosecuted. Many others are dead. Though as I said, if you believe in God, they're in Hell. As would be the people I would place a lot of blame on - senior clerics, nuns and administrators.

They moved abusers around, maintaining the policy of denial and put more and more children at risk with their policies. They also inflicted savage reprisals on children who tried to make a stand. Most would be dead now.

I believe the law has been changed to account for situations where investigations into abuse are obstructed.

orestes

The state and church colluded to cover up the systematic physical abuse and acknowledged sexual abuse of children in their care, and now the tax-payers are footing the majority of the bill because of some arrangement the government made with the church, and no individuals will be prosecuted for any of these literally thousands of crimes?

That's what I'm getting from reading this thread, but I think I have clearly gone insane because my mind can't wrap itself around that and fit it into reality

Darragh29

The Christian Brother I've referred to above, started abusing children in the 1960's and he was still abusing children almost 30 years later in the late 1980's. He had been moved from school to school everytime a concern was raised about him.

It is nothing less than unbelievable how on earth vunerable children could ultimately ended up in Magdalene Laundries and Rosary Beed Factories, not being fed, being battered black and blue for no reason whatsoever, removed from their families, no proper clothes, all undertaken by people who claimed to be spiritual people, holy people who claimed to be guided by charity, rightousness and the word of God.

This to me in an Irish thing, the hypocracy of how things were done in this country permutates right down to the problems we have to deal with today. Nobody is accountable, nobody takes responsibility, we pay hundreds of millions of Euro for a report, but yet nobody is held to account.

Some of the people that I recall being behind this abuse should be pulled out of their f*cking graves and their bones thrown into the nearest sewerage treatment plant.

InFront

orestes wrote: »

The state and church colluded to cover up the systematic physical abuse and acknowledged sexual abuse of children in their care

To be fair, yes the Catholic Church did this but I don't agree you can just claim the state embarked on a policy of collusion to cover this up. This report wouldn't have been possible without the state.

It's the fault of the catholic church and nobody should be diluting their fault by bringing in other parties as co-criminal

Latchy

One man who's brother was serverly abused at Artane told how his brother wanted to torch the place after he got out .Listening to what he went through , I think I would have thought the same .Thing is ,in same circumstances , I would have ( torched the place ) .

Worry about burning some of the inmates to death might have prevented me .

Tom65

I just think it's astonishing that after 60 odd years of endemic abuse, the Catholic Church still run a majority of the schools in the state.

I just wonder what the next report will say (the one about the Dublin arch dioceses). Hopefully, it'll make some way toward state schools being secularised.

Jesus1222

Darragh29 wrote: »

It is nothing less than unbelievable how on earth vunerable children could ultimately ended up in Magdalene Laundries and Rosary Beed Factories, not being fed, being battered black and blue for no reason whatsoever, removed from their families, no proper clothes, all undertaken by people who claimed to be spiritual people, holy people who claimed to be guided by charity, rightousness and the word of God..

The most disgusting part of this is that the report says some institutes actively pursued destitute children to make their project more economically viable.

Darragh29

Tom65 wrote: »

I just think it's astonishing that after 60 odd years of endemic abuse, the Catholic Church still run a majority of the schools in the state.

I just wonder what the next report will say (the one about the Dublin arch dioceses). Hopefully, it'll make some way toward state schools being secularised.

What is going to come out in the next report will shock people to their very core if any of what I've learnt in the last few years is true.

Nodin

Valentia wrote: »

Mr Justice Sean Ryan, said: “For all that the report tries to do, it does not try to balance what happened to children in institutions against what might have become of them if they had not been taken into care in the first place.”

That seems like a very very odd thing to say.

When you could sent to an institution for being a child of a family judged 'destitute' or bunking off school, and could then be subjected to years of rape, beatings and floggings, hunger and cold, its actually a stupid and unsustainable thing to say. We're not talking about clipped ears and soggy salads here.

Orestes wrote:

The state and church colluded to cover up the systematic physical abuse and acknowledged sexual abuse of children in their care, and now the tax-payers are footing the majority of the bill because of some arrangement the government made with the church, and no individuals will be prosecuted for any of these literally thousands of crimes?

The state more defered than colluded. One gets the impression of a fear and deference to the various orders involved, rather than some equal relationship. The 'voice of God' card is a tough one to beat, in fairness.

And no prosectutions (though given the time span, that would be problematic anyway) or naming and shaming and yes, the church is capped in liability at 128 million as mentionded earlier.

97i9y3941

its an awful insult to the victims,yes they finally where believed that abuse did happen,but the people that did it where protected by the gov/church,now the same thing is happening again since the report blacked out or changed the abusers names.