New Ireland Group

The exposure, in the Ryan report and the Murphy report, has had a number of effects, not all of them detrimental. Society will be encouraged to be more openly critical of its institutions and, as a result, may oblige institutional officers to become more accountable to those over whom they hold power or influence. In turn, the citizens may feel more able to criticise directly those in responsibility if it is felt they are abusing their power and influence.

Also, the suffering inflicted over many years on so many of our abused citizens, and the residue of guilt, regret, remorse, anxiety, depression, may at last have been alleviated.

Nevertheless, the pathology has been so endemic that investigation should not stop with the Dublin diocese nor be confined by any quasi-geographical border or sectarian boundary. Alan Shatter, TD, called on the Government to “engage directly in discussions with the Northern Ireland Executive, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown . . . to seek the creation of structures to address allegations of clerical and institutional abuse in Northern Ireland”.

By no stretch of imagination is it likely that the Roman Catholic Church clergy have been the only guilty offenders in these respects. Yet again, Kincora comes to mind.

Any further investigation should seek to unearth paedophilia, from the slightest degree to the most revoltingly violent. No school, church or other social institution or organisation should any longer be immune from suspicion until all those who have suffered this scourge have been given the opportunity to let go of its effects.

Without compromising the laws of the state regarding such hateful and destructive acts, admission may also have some redemptive effect on the perpetrators, similar to that obtained by the process of restorative justice. All schools throughout Britain and Ireland, especially those which still house or which have housed boarders, should now be thoroughly investigated to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the desire to have this vile practice eliminated. 

JOHN ROBB