Fergus Finlay: The next steps the government must take to help abused children
That Scoping Children All A Allegations Has The Quarter Found Abuse The Of A Concerned Of With Disability Inquiry
It’s really important to understand that there is no cure for trauma. Especially the trauma inflicted by one person on another as part of an act, or series of acts, of abuse. Money doesn’t cure it. Revenge doesn’t cure it. There is no pill or medical treatment that can cure it.
It is possible for people to learn how to live with trauma, to live fuller and happier lives despite it. And decent and fair financial compensation can help with that. But trauma is always there — sometimes locked in a box deep inside, sometimes covered over by emotional scar tissue. There is always the danger that it can break out and do damage — that’s why people coping with trauma in their lives talk about triggering events, the sometimes random things that bring it back to the surface.
If a person has been traumatised by abuse there are two things that help more than any other. The first is if the person is believed when they tell their story. The second is if the person who has perpetrated the abuse accepts full responsibility and blame for the abuse they have committed. If the abuser has been employed, or protected, by an organisation, the organisation must also recognise that they were complicit in the abuse.
Let’s just take two organisations, the Brothers of Charity and the John of God Order. Both of them were asked by the scoping inquiry if they were likely to cooperate with a full statutory inquiry. Both gave the same legally crafted answer. Yes in principle, they said. But in practice? Well, maybe. If they’re happy with the terms of reference. If privacy permits it. If its own ethos (whatever the hell that is) permits it. If their legal advice at the time permits it. If GDPR (heaven help us all) permits it.
In other words, not really. We’re not really prepared to come before a statutory inquiry and own the abuse we allowed to happen on our watch, and take full responsibility for the abusers we protected and sheltered for years. Our corporate reputations are too important for that. And, of course, we have to protect our very large cash and property assets.
Why bother with these two in particular? Because the scoping inquiry has found that a quarter of all the allegations of abuse concerned children with a disability. Eighty per cent of those children were allegedly abused in the care of those two organisations alone. There were 294 children and up to 100 alleged abusers (there may be some overlap in the number of abusers) in the case of the Brothers of Charity. There were 122 children and perhaps 40 abusers in John of God. (I find it hard to put words like Charity and God into those sentences without feeling sick.) And they were, every one of them without exception, children with moderate to severe intellectual disability. These were children who could never fight back, who could never tell their stories or bear witness, who were absolutely, utterly helpless in the face of abusers. They were helpless, defenceless, and abused without mercy. And then their abusers were hidden and protected.
There’s another reason we should be focused on organisations like those two now. We pay them, both of them, hundreds of millions every year. We pay them to educate our children, to help them develop to their fullest potential. We pay them to protect our children. Last year alone, through the HSE, we gave the Brothers of Charity €308m and John of God €215m. That’s half a billion euro in one year. And now we know that generations of children were abused in their care and protection, while we paid them hundreds of millions. And they’re not sure if they want to cooperate.
They’re sorry, of course. Very sorry. Our children, they will tell us, are constantly in their thoughts and prayers. They’d like to offer counselling, even restorative justice in some bland form.
Not a single organisation has said they want to put all of the wealth at their disposal into helping people who have been traumatised and abused. And they won’t.
So here’s what needs to happen — and all of these decisions can be made quickly. The government needs to appoint a Commission of Investigation, headed not by a barrister but by a senior judge. The terms of reference must include a commitment — and this is entirely allowable under law — that the Commission will hold hearings in public as well as in private. There should be provision in the terms for television coverage of public hearings.
As part of any Commission the Government should appoint an independent member, an observer, whose sole function should be to report regularly and in public about the public interest and the degree to which it is being met within the proceedings. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made in the past to achieve this without independence. Anyone who has, for example, followed the commission of inquiry into the Grace case would have very strong views on this issue.
Within the terms of reference the Commission should be empowered to compel all the religious organisations involved to open their full accounts and to reveal the full value of their assets. The Commission should also have the power to appoint forensic accountants to thoroughly examine every bit of financial data supplied.
Side by side with the Commission, the government must establish a separate body to enable survivors of abuse to simply tell their stories if that is what they want to do, in an atmosphere of respect and not adversarial challenge.
Then there is the question of redress. I have a very strong view that in the case of private fee-paying schools the burden of redress should fall entirely on the orders that run them. In the case of state provision or state-funded provision the perpetrators should be compelled to pay the lion’s share. If necessary the law should be changed to facilitate class actions, and the State should be prepared to help fund them. Survivors of abuse should never be put in the position of having to risk everything they own to take on religious organisations with very deep pockets.
And there should be no question, now or ever again, of either indemnities for the Orders or compulsory gag orders for any survivor who receives redress. There can be no going back to the shameful deals of the past.
From this moment on, this entire process has to be, as much as possible, about truth and justice. It will cost money and time — maybe billions, maybe years. But it’s the least survivors deserve, and it’s the only measure of healing possible.