Children Of The Poor Clares (33 page)

This Commission, with Justice Mary Laffoy of the High Court as its chairperson, was established in May 2000. Its complex mandate was to conduct an inquiry and hear evidence from those claiming to have suffered abuse in Industrial and Reformatory Schools. Where the Commission was satisfied that maltreatment had occurred, it was to determine its causes, nature, circumstances and extent. The Commission was to prepare and publish reports on the results of the inquiry and on its recommendations on how to deal with the effects of the abuse. It set up an operating structure with two committees, one which would give confidentiality to those giving testimony but would not permit any investigation; the second, which evolved into the Redress Board, was to carry out investigations and to call witnesses from the institutions and to deal with the issue of compensation.

Misgivings about the process increased when the Redress legislation was hurriedly pushed through the Dail and Seanad, with debating time cut short, and the ‘guillotine’ used on the committee stage. Using the argument of expediency, amendments from the Opposition were denied, and then others were introduced, many of which were not debated.
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These included a section on ‘criminal records’ (of the claimants—which could be introduced as evidence against them) and opportunities for the Religious Orders to challenge their accusers at the Redress Board without fear of their own incrimination. One of the many problems that had already arisen from the Commission legislation was that although it protected them from potential prosecution by indemnifying both the Orders and the State against having to defend themselves against any allegations by the ex-pupils, members of the Orders who had staffed the institutions and who were being accused of wrongdoing, were—predictably—turning to the services of lawyers and legal arguments to defend themselves.

These problems were now compounded by draconian conditions imposed in the Redress Act on the men and women who would come before the Redress Board. They were to be subject to what was in effect a gag order: they were forbidden to disclose the compensation they received, at the risk of forfeiture of their awards, fines and, almost incredibly, even of imprisonment. In effect the only people who could face serious penalties through the whole process were those who were claiming abuse.

A basic question was who was to pay for the cost of redress damages, and how: what proportion by the State—i.e. the taxpayer, and what proportion by the Church? When Dr. Woods, the Minister of Education announced what became known as the ‘indemnity deal’ between the government and the Church—represented by C.O.R.I., it sounded as though the Church’s contribution—theoretically 128 million euros (40 million in cash, the rest in property and services) was generous.
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The rest was to come from the public purse. What was not immediately revealed about the deal was that it included hidden agreements giving the State power to defend actions brought by those claiming abuse, and that it obliged the Orders to stand with the State in common defence in any further legal actions. Furthermore, any payments made to victims by the Redress Board would represent no admission of legal liability for the pain and suffering they had endured.

The nature and secrecy of the deal precipitated a public dispute between Dr. Woods and the Minister for Justice, whose department had not been consulted. Then, in September 2003 there was unprecedented criticism of one government department by another in a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General focused on wasteful expenditure of public monies: when the full details of the deal became known in January that year, it was estimated that the State could be on the hook for up to 1 billion euros.
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The actual working of the Redress Board had been introduced by yet another Minister of Education
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. This meant that the same government department which had had responsibility for the Industrial School system and whose collusive negligence had enabled the wrongdoing to continue for decades, was taking control of all the mechanisms set up to implement the Taoiseach’s apology.

Misgivings about the process, and of the role of the Department of Education, were intensified when Justice Laffoy resigned in frustration from the Commission in December 2003. By then 1,172 complainants had made 4,128 allegations of abuse. In the Commission’s Third Interim Report that month she had written that ‘Insofar as the Commission has been beset by problems, (they) have largely emanated from external factors, for example, the attitude of the Survivors’ Solicitors to the issue of compensation, and the attitude of the legal representatives of the various parties involved in the process to the State’s liability for the costs of legal representation.’ She stated that the Commission had been ‘devoid of any real independent capacity to perform its statutory functions’ and pointed to delaying tactics used by the Department of Education in a situation where the passage of time meant that ‘potential witnesses die, become indisposed or incapacitated, or cannot be traced.’ Obstacles had been placed in its way, and requests for necessary resources, information and staff had not been dealt with. In a letter to the Department she had drawn attention ‘to the potential for damage (caused by the delays) to persons the process was intended to benefit… ‘and she asked what would be the relevance of a report that came out ten years later.

Justice Laffoy was replaced by Sean Ryan, who had already had a role in drawing up the legislation for the compensation process, and who was seen as less sympathetic to the complainants. Now made into a High Court judge, he instigated a lengthy process of re-examination based on his expressed wish to reassure himself and the public that abuse had actually taken place. This involved public and private hearings from May 2004 into the following year in which substantial amounts of evidence was re-heard.

In July 2004, one of the witnesses to the Redress Board before Justice Ryan was Sister Patricia Rogers,
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Congregation Leader of the Poor Clare Sisters. Like many other representatives of the Orders who had run the Schools and who had been formally requested by the Board to attend a hearing, she had no personal experience of the Industrial School system and said she had to rely on what documentary material she had been able to locate, along with the memories of a few elderly nuns. She explained that ‘Many of the Sisters and the lay staff who worked in the institutions are dead, some have left the congregation and some just cannot be traced.’

The Poor Clares who had operated a single Industrial School, St. Joseph’s in Cavan, were only minor players in the process, but Sister Patricia made clear the advantages of the indemnity deal to all the Orders. She volunteered the information that the reason her Congregation had made a contribution to the indemnity fund set up by the Conference of the Religious of Ireland was that ‘we felt that we would be assisting people who had been in our care during their childhood and who are now experiencing difficulties in their lives. We believe that the Redress Scheme presented an opportunity for ending litigation in a quicker and in a less adversarial manner that would be the case in court. We wanted at all costs to avoid a confrontation situation if that were possible. We also believe that the money expended by the Congregation would go directly to the residents rather than be absorbed by legal fees… We were aware that the Redress Scheme was going to have a far lower threshold of proof than the courts in that no blame was going to be apportioned to any individual or institution…
An
indemnity
from
the
State
was
a
prerequisite
 . . . ‘(our italics).

Another of the witnesses to appear before the Redress Board was the nun we earlier called Sister Angela, of the Order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, whom we had interviewed decades before at their convent in Gloucester Street, Dublin. It was to this institution, when it was operating as an extra-legal laundry-reformatory, that girls from Cavan were illegally transferred. ‘Sister Angela’ told the Commission that 30% of abuse allegations were false—‘for revenge, for compensation or mistaken memory’.

*       *       *

Initially, all the government activity had convinced many of the men and women who had been grievously misused in the institutions that they were going to receive justice for the wrongs done to them. Despite the restrictions of the legislation, many wished to go before the Commission and tell their story. For some there was the deep desire to confront their childhood tormentors. After enduring years of silence, disbelief or indifference about their maltreatment, and a life-time of its long-term damage, they now turned to the Commission, hoping that it would give them at least the opportunity of being heard and understood. By the December 2005 deadline over 14,000 men and women had made application to appear before the Redress Board.

The form which they first were required to complete was itself a strong disincentive and a major barrier for them to overcome. Its demands for information were intrusive and complicated—including medical and psychiatric reports that could be made available to ‘any person and to the representative of any institution in this application’, as well as details such as the applicant’s ‘number’ at their childhood Industrial School, along with their descriptions of specific incidents of abuse. Apart from any other consideration, many of the ex-pupils were marginally literate as a result of their lack of education, and often had to obtain help from solicitors. Many of their applications were rejected.

It was never going to be easy for these men and women to go before the Redress Board and tell strangers, however sympathetic, about the intimately painful experiences of their childhood, but after appearing at its closed hearings many of them told of facing an adversarial and disbelieving audience. Some Board members were reported to have made disparaging remarks to complainants who were required to appear before the Board alone, without even the presence of family members or friends to give them comfort and moral support.

“It’s the equivalent of going into hell and being roasted alive—indescribable,” said Paddy Doyle. “You go into a room with a number of people you’ve never seen before. The judge has a bunch of personal information about you. It’s very intimidating. I’m lucky I did manage to get an education, but most people my age who were in these institutions got none. You’re vulnerable if you don’t have an education, if you can’t speak, if you can’t spell, if you can’t articulate yourself… I’d like to elaborate on its secret proceedings, but to do so would see me being fined up to €2,000 in the first instance. Were I or anyone else who appeared before the Board to speak about what went on behind its closed doors a second time, we would face a fine of €25,000 and one or two years in prison.’

Ronald McCartan, at Artane from 1956 to 1962, had had his application to give testimony refused, but he attended a public hearing at the Redress Board in May 2006, interrupting statements about the institution by the representative of the Christian Brother, calling out that the Brother by his own admission had never been to the place. Later Mr. McCartan commented that ‘The Bill in its present form has proven to be a financial boon for the Judiciary and the Legal Profession. Some have become millionaires as a result whilst the survivors scrape around for crumbs of recompense.’
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Others like Mannix Flynn refused to seek compensation under the legislation. ‘ . . . it couldn’t compensate victims for the wrongs done in a childhood in Industrial Schools. It left them poor, uneducated and inarticulate… whatever is left of you will be torn to shreds. They’re going to cross-examine you; they’re going to regard you as a liar. You’re going to be the accused, even though you’re the one making the allegations.’ (Of the horrendously brutal treatment the children had received at Letterfrack, he once said ‘You were beaten until you were turned into a whimpering simpleton’.)

In April 2004, 57 year old Tom Sweeney went on a twenty-two day hunger strike outside the Dail. At the age of ten he had been summoned before a Children’s Court for playing truant from school, and spent the next five years in several Industrial Schools where he was physically and sexually abused. He went before the Redress Board and was awarded €113,000. When he chose to opt for a full hearing so that he could tell his story, his compensation was reduced to €67,000. Protesting against the unfair and degrading treatment of survivors by the Board, and the injustice of the punishment he’d received, Mr. Sweeney wanted his case reviewed and the Redress Board system changed. Although he was ignored at first, he persisted with his fast, his health deteriorating before the eyes of TDs. In the face of growing publicity and questions in the Dail, the government announced that his case could be heard by the High Court, and he agreed to end his fast.
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Dr. Michael Corry, a clinical psychiatrist who testified on behalf of three patients ‘all sexually abused, and who will bring their pain and suffering to the grave’, condemned the Board as a ‘place of secrecy, exclusion and bewilderment… ‘He described the effect on his patients of not being allowed to have anyone with them during their hearings. ‘They were alone. Alone in attempting to articulate their exposure to regimes of unbridled rape and violence which lasted for years, at the hands of sadistic sexual perverts answerable to no one. Alone in telling about how they learned to place no value on themselves, and with their lives totally derailed following their release at 16 years old, drifted from one crisis to another for the rest of their lives.’ When he was testifying, he felt he was ‘an unwelcome irritation slowing down the proceedings’. There was evidence, he wrote, that the Redress Board re-traumatised victims.
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