Jennifer Horgan: State's ‘diabolical intelligence’ in dealing with abuse persists

I’m sitting with David in the days following the publication of the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools Run by Religious Orders. The vast majority of testimonies come from men, then boys, such as  him.

According to journalist Donal O’Keeffe, reporting on the publication: “In Cork alone, there were more than 300 allegations of abuse against more than 130 alleged abusers in more than 30 schools.”

Time marches on, but of course this report is not news to any of us. We all know abuse happened, time and time again, and we equally know that neither the Church nor the State has done enough to acknowledge it — or to offer anything approximating justice.

Up until 2005, David, now in his 50s, didn’t recognise what had happened to him as abuse. Openly sharing details of his ongoing friendship with the priest, with his then girlfriend, he remembers her saying, “That’s fucked up. You need to talk to someone.”

His poem 'Talking About It' explores the moment when he first said it out loud to a therapist: “I think I was [abused].”

The sexual abuse lasted almost two years, from fifth year into sixth year. Groomed at 16, the priest waited until after his 17th birthday, the age of consent, to have sex with him.

David refers to this as his “diabolical intelligence”. Throughout the collection there is a sense of going back in time, revisiting the school, described like a fairytale castle, only now it is different, as expressed in the eerie 'Trapped by Trees', a poem of returning and revision.

Time is also relevant to his process as a poet.

“It’s easier to write poetry because you can take it one step at a time, tricking yourself into writing a book. You think you’re only doing this one poem; several years later, you have a family of poems.”

Poetry suspends time too, he says. “It allows you to write about traumatic moments. You can dwell on the image, pause in the moment. A narrative has to keep telling the story. This is often a key image, a deep image in poetry, a stone thrown in a lake that will have ripples.” He remembers his abuser recounting how he first knew David was ‘special’, a ‘blushing’ boy in his class.

“That was him as a shark, telling the prey about how it finds blood in the water. He revealed to me unconsciously how he worked, presenting it as a sweetness, but he was telling me how his sociopathic intelligence worked. His thinking: ‘Oh, here is my next victim.’

“I would have panic attacks when my girlfriend questioned our relationship. I was in such denial. I had constructed this world in which I wasn’t abused.”

He eventually reported the abuse to the school, in 2005; the priest was sent to a treatment centre in Canada having admitted to it straight away, and was then laicised by the Vatican.

Time passed.

“By 2016, I knew I had to report it to the police.” He flew back to Ireland from America.

In the poem 'Henry Street Garda Station', Reporting (2016) he recalls the 12-hour session.

Two of them come, solicitous, serious: David?

I struggle to hear him share what comes next.

“They prepared a book of evidence for the DPP but it was never brought to trial because they said there was evidence I had consented. I went through a process of appeal but it didn’t work. It was as if they didn’t understand that consent is tricky.”

I bristle — at the idea that a young boy could objectively consent, when even as a 33-year-old man, back in 2005, he was still so deep in denial.

The priest’s ‘diabolical intelligence,’ his gamble, waiting until David was 17, had paid off.

“I had a lot of anger for a while but for me writing the book has been my sense of agency,” he says. “I have passed the baton to other people. But I also hope my collection helps.”

Time stalls for survivors. In one sense, Dave is lucky, being a talented writer with a unique ability to process his trauma.

Others have sought justice abroad. The European Court of Human Rights, in Louise O’Keeffe’s case in 2014, ruled that the State should “have been aware, given its inherent obligation to protect children … of potential risks to their safety if there was no appropriate framework of protection”.

The court established that any person who was victim to abuse in Irish schools during that period should be entitled to compensation.

The Irish courts have never taken on the European judgement. The law here remains the same — that the State is not liable for historical abuse in schools.

The State’s response was to establish a redress scheme to provide out-of-court settlements to people who were abused in schools, but with very restrictive criteria that made it difficult to qualify for a payment.

Now, the Department of Education promises swift action on the back of the scoping report. Time will tell.

Why has the State not been deemed liable up until now? Because it handed education over to the Church. In the European Court that was how they were found liable. It was the very act of handing over control without putting any safeguards in place that was found to be the basis of liability.

Here, the State uses it as protection. Such trickery, with the abusers acting also as a kind of shield, is a get-out-of-jail card for the State.

When I leave David, walking into a sunny Monday, a late morning in Cork, something nags at me. Time passes, naturally. How are we protecting our young people now?

I wonder, if David had known how to recognise manipulative behaviour and abuses of power, could he have been a little less vulnerable? If he had been taught about the intricacies of consent, could he have been better equipped in that man’s classroom?

As RTÉ reported this week, the Department of Education has delayed the mandatory teaching of these topics at senior cycle (which happens in SPHE) until 2027, because Ireland does not train teachers in the subject. Currently, only one in five schools teaches it at senior cycle, when students are the age Dave was, suffering his abuse.

How many schools, referencing their Catholic ethos, still avoid teaching children what they desperately need to know about sex, and about what safe, respectful, consenting relationships look like?

Whatever about the ruling of the European Court in 2014, too little has changed over time. Numerous international human rights bodies show that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other instruments, include a right to sexuality education. Irish schools are still failing in their duty of care, allowing the ethos of the Church to come between itself and the protection of young citizens.

As stated in an excellent paper by Aoife Daly and Catherine O’Sullivan, “it is unlikely that sexual violence will ever be entirely eliminated but State provision of comprehensive sexuality education can play an important role in reducing its occurrence.” In this, time stands still.

In this, the State’s diabolical intelligence, or at the very least its diabolical laziness, its cowardice, persists.

• David’s collection is available to buy online at Books Upstairs