School sex abuse inquiry 'should also include examination of corporal punishment'
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Survivors have called for the ongoing statutory inquiry into sexual abuse in schools to be widened to include allegations of physical abuse of children by teachers.
It comes as survivors speak out against a culture of violence and the lifelong consequences because of the treatment they received in religious and lay schools.
Education Minister Norma Foley has said she would not rule in or out a commission of investigation into corporal punishment.
Despite millions of children attending school during the years corporal punishment was in place, the Department of Education holds just 117 records of physical abuse of children by teachers.
Corporal punishment remained in place in Irish schools until 1982, and teachers remained immune from prosecution until 1997.
The recent publication of the scoping inquiry into historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders highlighted once again historic failures of the State to protect children.
However, survivor Dermot Flynn, who recently received a settlement of €100,000 from the Spiritan Order for the physical abuse he suffered, was excluded from the scoping inquiry into sexual abuse.
“When the Scoping Inquiry was announced, I thought this would have been a great opportunity for us, and I filled in their questionnaire, I communicated with them through email. Then I get the bombshell from them that you weren’t sexually abused, we don’t really want to know about your case. So that made me feel that physical abuse wasn’t that important, even though it had impacted my whole life.”
The revelations were included as part of the RTÉ documentary 'Leathered' which aired on Wednesday night and featured the first-hand stories of a number of victims of physical abuse in schools.
Cork poet and author Theo Dorgan told the documentary about his schooldays in the North Monastery School in Cork in the 1960s. He said:
His lifelong friend and schoolmate, film festival co-director Mick Hannigan remembers: “It was not so much a daily occurrence, but an hourly occurrence, class after class.
“If you got a sum wrong, if you got some difficult Irish poem wrong, then you were punished.”
New figures released to RTÉ by the Department of Education show that between 1962 and 1982, just 108 allegations involving physical abuse by teachers against pupils were recorded by the Department. This is despite millions of children went through the education system.
More than three quarters of these allegations included allegations of other forms of abuse; 87 of the allegations were at primary level where children as young as four attended school; 21 were at second level.
The Department of Education holds a further nine allegations for the five years after the introduction of the 1982 ban on Corporal Punishment in schools, 1982 to 1987.
Speaking ahead of the documentary's release, Norma Foley said there is “no place whatsoever in our schools for any form of abuse”, citing both corporal punishment and sexual abuse, which has been highlighted through the scoping inquiry of religious run schools.
“I do want to acknowledge that we’re all very familiar with the heartbreak and the trauma that was experienced by so many when it came to physical abuse in schools and we’re very conscious of that,” Ms Foley said. “You know, 1982 was the landmark when corporal punishment was abolished and that’s not too long ago now at all.
“Really and truly, one would have to say that there never should have been a time in school where corporal punishment was allowed.”