The Irish Times – Thursday, December 31, 2009
DAVID ADAMS
The litany of abuse was horrifying, as was how far the church went to cover up crimes and protect perpetrators
BY ANY reckoning, 2009 has not been a good year, North or South.
In Northern Ireland, it seemed at times as though the bad old days were rising up again like a malign spectre to mock our optimism and complacency.
Dissident republicans murdered two soldiers and a police officer, actively targeted other security personnel, issued a range of death threats, and carried out numerous “punishment” shootings and beatings. Failed bomb attacks and hoax warnings periodically disrupted towns, villages and city centres, along with the everyday lives of hapless commuters and resident communities. There was a weary dawning that the dissidents are more than just a minor irritant; they pose a real and growing security threat.
Constant bickering and jockeying for supremacy signalled an end to the DUP and Sinn Féin honeymoon period – such as it ever was – and awakened us to still another harsh reality: we can’t take the political process for granted either.
Racist and sometimes murderous sectarian attacks; the recession and consequent job losses; general economic insecurity and necessary belt-tightening: it all made for a bleak year in the North.
Aside from security concerns, the Republic had it even worse. The naked greed and ineptitude of a once cosy cabal of bankers, property speculators and politicians finally killed off the Celtic Tiger and brought the Southern economy to its knees.
Resulting in hard recessionary times, with talk of youngsters having to emigrate to earn a living, reminiscent again of a dark dreary past thought to have been consigned forever to the dustbin of history. When the “Hand of Henry” ruined the Republic’s chance of a place at the World Cup finals, it seemed perversely fitting to an already demoralised and dispirited people.
Overshadowing everything, and what will define 2009 after all else is forgotten, was the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports, detailing decades of sexual and physical abuse of children by priests and nuns of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The litany of abuse was horrifying enough, but how far the church went, often in collusion with agencies of the State, to cover up crimes, protect perpetrators and disparage the claims of victims was also truly shocking.
The church does not learn lessons easily. Except for a few notable individuals, such as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, it has continued to behave badly. Damage limitation and eventual re-establishment of the position of the institution remains its prime consideration. Almost every statement issued has contained a line or two about the dire need to restore public faith in the integrity of the church.
Actually, the dire need is for complete openness and honesty and justice and recompense for victims; and where at all possible for criminal charges to be laid against perpetrators and those who aided and abetted them, either by action or deliberate inaction. If faith in the integrity of the church is restored as a by product of that, then so be it, but it shouldn’t be an aim in itself.
Worse have been the Pontius Pilate-like machinations of the Vatican to try to ensure that ultimate responsibility does not land at its door. Just as in Ireland, it is determined that similar horrific revelations in, among many other countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Italy, Austria, Poland and Argentina, be faced up to and dealt with by the local church. We are meant to believe that the Catholic Church is an autonomous entity wherever it has a problem. In the United States, the Vatican has sought and been granted diplomatic immunity against numerous legal claims that it be held responsible for incidents of abuse by priests.
It is in this wider context that one should view the refusal of the papal nuncio in Dublin to reply to correspondence from investigators for the Murphy commission, and never mind subsequent waffle about proper diplomatic channels not having been gone through. This deliberate distancing of itself by the Vatican has more than monetary concerns at its root – though holding on to its treasures is doubtless of major concern. By insisting on local responsibility the Vatican is engaging in a large-scale damage limitation exercise.
In Ireland, as in every other country affected, the public and media focus is understandably local, as is the notion of where solutions must lie. That is precisely how the Vatican wants things to remain. If it were even once to admit any measure of responsibility then the focus would immediately shift to Rome. Realisation would follow that the issue of child sex abuse and cover up by agents of the Catholic Church is far from a set of local problems but a worldwide phenomenon that demands fundamental change from the top downwards. The danger for the Vatican is that people may lose faith in the centre, rather than in just a few relatively peripheral individuals. Some monetary recompense and the sacrifice of a few bishops is a small price to pay to ensure that the Vatican remains immune. Untouched and unchanged, as secretive and as powerful as ever.
Happy New Year. Let’s hope 2010 is a better one.
Hello Jim – Re: yours of 14.1.2010
Thank you for your most recent and detailed clarifications. It is grim reading indeed. I was not “unlawfully imprisoned” by the Irish State, as you and so many others were, and I have perhaps wrongly put Abuse, Unlawful Detention and all the Crimes listed in the Ryan and Murphy Reports under the same umbrella. I had not thought of separating one from the other although I understand how different approaches may be called for in seeking Justice. I am sick to find out that Ryan could have been just another Machiavellian ploy from the State to protect itself and “invalidate” the Victims testimonies in the courts of the land. For me, it does not matter that Louise O’Keeffe was NOT a State prisoner, because just as Ryan was supposed to be different from Murphy, the crimes involved concern ALL Children in the country: the common denominator here is that, Violence against children is tolerated in the Constitution (as long as the Family remains the so-called “best place” for the Child) and the notion of Abuse towards our children has yet to spill over into Irish SOCIETY and COMMUNITY (as distinct from Institutions, or Dioceses…etc). When is THAT Report coming out?
Although the information is dark and depressing, I welcome the reality check and would not consider it to snuff the Hope out of me. Together with the evil.org site (which I did not know about – thank you Portia), it only strengthens my resolve in fighting for Justice and anchors my beliefs more deeply. On a parallel with your own stories (all the Victims I mean), we know now with certainty, thanks to an Inquest ruling that she WAS right on all counts, we know Cynthia Owen was telling the Truth all these past decades (I never doubted her); but still there is no shame on our part for having not believed her or had systems in place that did not believe her.
You mention the State’s reliance on “educational purposes” (Art 42.5) and to note that the European Convention on Human Rights contains a similar provision. Wow, that is a sickener too. This is exactly what lies in the way of respecting Children’s Rights. Jim, I don’t expect you to respond to the following point, but isn’t it ironic that, strictly and technically speaking, Revolution might be the ONLY thing that would work? This principle of Educational Pedagogy is the corner stone of Alice Miller’s work; here is a link to her book For Your Own Good (1980) which can be read in its entirety on line for free
http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm
Finally: it grieves me deeply to see Victims in disagreement with each other, just as different Groups and Organisations seem to be. In my eyes and experience, this is a mirror reflection of what happens in Dysfunctional Families where the CHILDREN either fight EACH OTHER, or when one child is ignored or ostracized by the other. It is ALWAYS the crazy parents/parental figures’ FAULT. Here, the Government, the System and the Catholic Church: THESE and THESE ALONE, should be the target of your totally justified Anger. Maybe then, a Nation in a complete state of Denial and Amnesia will vote with their feet.
Respectfully to All.
I’ll be on the barricades and ON YOUR SIDE
raymondlambert@eircom.net
Raymond –yours 11.01.10
The purpose of the Laffoy-Ryan Commission and the Redress Board was to exonerate the delinquent State – to releive it of liability. In order to achieve that objective the history of the child prisons had to be faked. (incidentally, you can’t use anything in Ryan to pursue a case against the State).
Yes, the Irish people were well aware of the persecution of the child inmates. But, like the post-WWII German people, they deny all knowledge – with a few honourable exceptions such as the late Justin Keating.
Louise O’Keeffe’s case illustrates the State’s determination to deny responsibility. (but note that Louise, unlike you and me, was not a State prisoner).
Yes, as you suggest, there is room for a first false imprisonment case.
However, there may be good reasons why no cases have come before the courts.
The would-be litigant faces many hurdles, some of which, according to legal opinion, are insurmountable. A signature on the Redress Board waiver would probably constitute an insurmountable hurdle.
And of course the State would contest the case robustly. You can take my word for it that the State will fight you every inch of the way by fair means and foul.
An action challenging the constitutionality of S.58(2) of the Children Act 1908 came before the courts in 1989 (IR 169). The plaintiff argued that he suffered substantial deprivation of liberty without having had the benefit of a jury trial (in contravention of Art 38.5). The court rejected that argument on the basis that such a detention was for “educational purposes” and not for the purposes of punishment.
[note that this case involved CA 58(2) NOT CA 58(1) under which the majority of the Irish children were sentenced – even so, the ruling is relevant].
The State’s reliance on “educational purposes” (Art 42.5) may be risible to you and me but it highlights the gulf between reality and legal factoid. You may say (rightly, perhaps) that you were vindictively imprisoned for politico-religious reasons of State but the State will say that you were “placed in a school “ for “educational purposes”. (Note that the European Convention on Human Rights contains a similar “educational purposes” provision). You will need to dispose of that contention.
If you’re serious in your pursuit of justice you will have to familiarise yourself with the lexicon of legal humpty-dumptyisms (“detention” is not “imprisonment”, Artane was not a “prison” but a “school”, “slave labour” means “education”, etc, etc.)
CA (58)(1) (d) as amended by CA 10(1) was ruled unconstitutional in 1955 (Doyle case). It may be that similar considerations applied in your case – you’d have to check.
It seems to me that a retrospective challenge to the constitutionality of CA(58)(1) is likely to fail and is in any case unnecessary. There are easier and more cogent arguments to be made – I won’t go into them here except to say that a breach of CA 58(1) may be easier show.
It is known that many of us (probably the great majority) were unlawfully imprisoned. There is a good chance that you are one among that majority (I certainly am). But that doesn’t help your case.
You have to show that you, Raymond, were unlawfully imprisoned as a child many years ago. Can you do that? Remember that the District Courts didn’t usually keep records of their proceedings. Copies of your detention order and the court minute alone are of limited use here.
And that is only the beginning of your difficulties. Even if you are able to prove beyond all doubt that your imprisonment was unlawful your case would probably still fail because of the inordinate delay in your bringing the action (see for example De Roiste v. Minister for Defence, 2001).
And there are other hurdles.
But don’t despair; you have right on your side. And there is more than one way to skin a cat.
This is not a pursuit for the faint-hearted or for those who enjoy simply jumping up and down.
Jim Beresford, former Artane child prisoner 14262, Huddersfield, England
jim.beresford@btinternet.com
Barry – yours 11.01.10.
Don’t be elliptical, Barry. I prefer explicitness.
What am I getting the hang of? Where, in your view, haven’t I gotten yet?
You ask what I am doing about “it” – about what?
FIGHT, you say. Fight for what, and for whom?
In this neck of the woods (Yorkshire) we tend say what’s on our minds. Some call it bluntness but I prefer to call it directness and it preferable to the beating about the bush that goes on in Ireland.
What are you trying to say to me, Barry? Please get it off your chest.
Do you suggest that I ought to be fighting for the freedom of Irish slaves who are comfortable with their slavery – who have embraced their slave condition?
That would surely be a futile fight and it would, moreover, be an insult to the slaves. Who am I to demand freedom for those who wish to remain in slavery?
Do you suggest that I play Moses crying “let my people go” when the people don’t want freedom? Liberation is a choice each slave must make for himsel or herself.
It is recorded that some slaves in the Confederate States didn’t want freedom when it was offered to them in the 1860s. They preferred the security of the slave condition to the challenges of freedom. So it is with the Irish slaves. They have chosen to remain slaves. They have chosen to accept dependence upon a slave master who continues to oppress them (the Irish State).
It is so sad. They behave like the wretched dog that keeps returning to its cruel owner because it has nowhere else to go. The Irish slaves are addicted to the slave condition. The saddest sight of all must that of the slaves flocking to Mr Noel Barry’s annual Mass for the “survivors” in Cork, accompanied by the great and the good of Irish society, including politicians, bishops and do-gooders of all description. The wretched slaves are still on their knees.
You can urge people to get off their knees but you can’t make them do so, any more than you can make the proverbial horse drink water.
Mahatma Ghandi once observed that the slave’s fetters begin to fall only when he decides that he is no longer a slave. Freedom has to be chosen, it cannot be conferred or imposed.
Freedom begins in the mind. The Irish slaves must take that first step of choosing freedom before anybody else can help them.
I freed myself from Irish slavery more than forty-five years ago when I escaped from Artane prison and from Ireland. No-one is obliged to follow my example. Freedom is exhilarating but it can also be a tough choice. For me, it has meant disaffection and permanent exile from my place of birth. But, still, freedom is well worth that price. Escaping is the best day’s work I ever did. I thank my lucky stars every day that I don’t have to live under the Irish jackboot.
When I see the Irish slaves handing back their hush-money to the State, burning their Redress waivers in public and demanding truth and justice, then I will gladly take up the fight on their behalf, for whatever my efforts may be worth.
But I’m not holding my breath, Barry.
Jim Beresford, former Artane child prisoner 14262, Huddersfield, England
jim.beresford@btinternet.com
Hello Jim.
Thank you very much for your comprehensive clarification. I’m really sorry to hear that there is so much deceit and subterfuge even in the precious Ryan Report. The Government first, with its Politicians, Law-makers and Agents of Justice, is to be held accountable for their inhumane actions, but let’s not forget that one cannot go without the other, namely the Irish People who puts them up there and keeps them in ivory towers at nauseam and infinitum (pardon my French). Still, I believe that Truth always wins, in the end, even if the end seems so far away.
And again, it reminds me of Louise O’Keeffe: ……..Both courts ruled the department was not liable for the abuse as Mr Hickey was not employed by the department but was employed by the school’s board of management even though his salary was paid by the State.
In May, the Supreme Court opted not to award the State its costs, estimated to amount up to €750,000, against Ms O’Keeffe who welcomed that ruling before revealing that she was considering appealing to Europe………
Cheers
Jim, you say: “No former child prisoner has (to my knowledge) brought a case for false imprisonment in the Irish courts.”
So there is room for a FIRST.
There is only ONE person who, in my opinion RINGS TRUE, and that is Mary Robinson.. Now as in the past. Maybe SHE could be got to shine her bright candle on this sordid scandal.
It is good that these points can be seen and argued here on this site. One Voice – One Platform – with NO agenda/interest OTHER than TRUTH / REDRESS and JUSTICE.
Thanks to all for keeping this fire alight.
Raymond
In Solidarity
Now you are getting the hang of it Jim even though you have not gotten there yet. My question is what are you doing about It?
Barry FIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Raymond – re yours 08.01.09. I’m not an expert. I simply express opinions, rather as Mr Ryan does, and I’m not infallible, any more than he is – only the Pope is infallible! Perhaps we should hire him for legal advice.
Mr Ryan’s statement in his 2003 Review (at 1.2) is simply a piece of State propaganda.(He was paid by the Education Minister to write that guff). However it is interpreted, Mr Ryan’s opinion on the matter has no bearing whatever on our claim for justice.
In as much as Mr Ryan claims that the “measures” vindicate your Constitutional rights, he is plain wrong – as any half adequate lawyer will confirm.
I wrote to Mr Ryan at the time pointing out that he was wrong and asking if he would say how, in his opinion, my rights to personal liberty and good name were to be vindicated by the State (as required under Art. 40.3.2)
He didn’t reply.
Your rights to personal liberty, good name, etc, are only vindicated when the State acknowledges that it violated those rights. And the State has acknowledged precisely nothing – except perhaps that it failed to detect your pain! And even that claim is a lie!
You allude to the European Court of Human Rights. Before you have a chance of getting there you must first exhaust the domestic opportunities for remedy. No former child prisoner has (to my knowledge) brought a case for false imprisonment in the Irish courts. Doing so would be no easy matter. (I can go into it further if you wish).
The religious jailors were hired agents of the State. So is Mr Ryan. And bear in mind that he was educated by the Christian Brothers (at O’Connell Schools, Dublin).
Mr Ryan has done the State some service. He chaired the Compensation Advisory Committee that established the Redress Board’s system of awards. And since 2004 he has chaired the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. In return for his service to the State he has received more in remuneration than any of the Redress Board claimants received in compensation.
The Commission meant fame and fortune for Mr Ryan. He owes his seat on the High Court bench to the Commission. Without the Commission he would probably still be an unknown jobbing barrister.
No wonder, you may think, he is such a keen advocate for the government’s “measures”.
Meanwhile, you and me still wear the illegal detention orders around our necks. And some people think all this is a cause for celebration – not least some of the “survivors”. The State-paid “group leaders” and their chosen friends last summer flocked to a Presidential garden party declaring themselves proud citizens of the Republic. They quaffed the President’s wine and applauded her insulting address.
Accepting State bribes is one thing but hobnobbing with our oppressors is surely an obscenity too far.
It’s all so horribly reminiscent of the scene in Orwell’s Animal Farm where the pigs wine and dine with the farmers and can’t be distinguished from them.
How could anybody possibly applaud the president of a State that denies them their basic citizenship rights? But they did.
Also last year, a similr crowd attended the Humbert Summer School (Ballina) at which large plates were awarded to Mr Ryan and a celebrity victim (a “group leader” and a star of Irish TV). Addressing the assembled crowd, the TV star said: “I bow to you Mr Ryan…”. I don’t know whether he bowed so low as to lick Mr Ryan’s shoes. And history doesn’t record whether Mr Ryan squirmed or glowed at this adulation.
I gave up bowing and scraping a very long time ago. Sadly, it would appear that some of the former child prisoners have failed to free themselves from the slave mentality that was instilled in them during their childhood incarceration. They have never got off their knees.
They seem to have forgotten that Irish judges operating politico-religious kangaroo courts were responsiblke for their unlawful incarceration.
The Ryan Commission was a rigged inquiry. If such a rigged inquiry occurred in England it would be denounced publicly and in no uncertain terms. I recall that after the publication of the Hutton Report newspaper headlines screamed “WHITEWASH”.
Nobody in Ireland would dare to call the Ryan report a whitewash – but that’s what it is, and everyone knows it is. Yet I’ve seen barely any criticism of the Ryan Commission or its report in the Irish media. It is as though the Irish are living in a State of Fear (to borrow a phrase). They daren’t voice the truth for fear of being out of line. Moral cowardice is a national disease.
That fear to criticise sacred cows was a major factor in the child prison scandal. It is now a major factor in the State cover-up.
Jim Beresford
Former Artane child prisoner 14262, Huddersfield, England
jim.beresford@btinternet.com
Jim – Re your letter of 7.1.10
This was heavy stuff, coming seemingly from an Expert’s point of view.
Ryan says:
1.2 The Commission and the other measures that were put in place CAN BE SEEN as
fulfillment by the State of its Constitutional obligation under Article 40.3.2:-
“The State shall… in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen.”
QUESTION: COULD THE “CAN BE SEEN” BE CHALLENGED? (Dublin, Strasbourg, The Hague…?)
Ryan “saw” it that way, who says it could not, “be seen” some other way ?
Raymond
Barry – re your letter 31.12.09: I support your claim for justice. However, I think you will find that those former child prisoners who have signed the Redress Board waiver have thereby renounced their right (if any) to legal remedy for false imprisonment. (See text of waiver below).Note in particular that the signatory waives any right of action he/she may otherwise have had against “a court”. The waiver exonerates the court that ordered your imprisonment. It indemnifies the State against a subsequent claim for remedy in respect of wrongful imprisonment or anything else.
The Board’s no-fault payment represents full and final settlement of the issues between the signatory and the State. You can take the money or you can sue – but you can’t do both. I’m afraid you get only one bite of that particular cherry.
The Board does not (and cannot) offer legal remedy for unlawful childhood imprisonment. Anyone seeking such remedy should not sign the waiver.
The meaning and effect in law of the waiver is explained to all Board applicants. People sign the waiver voluntarily and under legal advice. Self-serving lawyers and State-paid lackeys (“support group leaders”) may have pressured some people to sign but nobody was forced to sign against their will. Any contention that there was coercion suggests that nearly 15,000 people lack minds of their own. So far as I am aware, nobody signed with a gun their head. The wrongfully imprisoned signed because their desire for money outweighed their desire for truth and justice.
Each of us was invited to collude in a State cover-up by faking our personal history in return for a bribe. We were expected to pretend that we had no complaint against the State for false imprisonment and that our only complaint was against the clerical jailors. Most took the bribe. The fake history appears in the Ryan report. According to Mr Ryan, the State’s illegal mass-incarceration crime is really a clerical sex scandal – even though most of the complainants to his Commission didn’t mention clerical sex abuse. Nowhere in Mr Ryan’s five-volume report is there any mention of illegal imprisonment. According to Mr Ryan the jailors were inflicting suffering on the inmates unbeknownst to the State and contrary to its wishes and regulations. Mr Ryan’s story is that the State had no hand in the suffering but merely failed to detect it.
Perversely, anyone who was LEGALLY imprisoned (for crime, say) can sign the waiver with an easy mind. Like it or not, it is a fact that Ireland’s courts and child prison system always favoured the criminally inclined. So does the “reparation” scheme.
By wrongfully imprisoning you the State violated your Constitutional rights to personal liberty, good name, etc. If you were wrongfully imprisoned as a child then the State has an obligation under article 40.3.2 of the Irish Constitution to vindicate your citizenship rights by rescinding your illegal detention order. Instead of meeting its obligation to restore your basic citizenship rights the State has offered you a bribe to go away and shut up about your rights. The delinquent State did you a grievous injustice in childhood and has now failed in its duty to rectify that injustice. Consequently, you remain less than a full citizen. A “right” which cannot be vindicated is a non-existent right.
Others may enjoy the much-vaunted rights enumerated in the Irish Constitution and established by case law– but you don’t because the State regards you as unworthy of those rights.
Make no mistake about it the State regards you as some kind of subhuman, undeserving of full citizenship rights. And Ireland’s corrupt politicians intend to keep it that way. They will patronise you and pity you, they will give you taxpayers’ money, they will pathologise you with offers of “healing”, they will invite you to presidential garden parties – they will do ANYTHING but recognise you as a human being with equal rights to themselves. It were ever thus.
The State stores your prison records and mine in its Special Education Section (Athlone). “Special” in this context, means sub-normal. That’s how the State continues to classify you and me. The State has always classified us as subnormal, as untermensch. When, in 1951, the routine savage flogging of Artane inmates was reported to then Education Minister, Sean Moylan (ex-IRA gunman) he excused the violence by explaining to the Dail that the inmates were “not normal children”. And in Ireland, once an untermensch always an untermensch.
And what did you do to deserve all this? You made the mistake of being one of THEM and not one of US (Sinn Fein). You failed to live up the de Valerite model of Irishness. Your very existence offended the sensibilities of the Republican ideologues who had come to power at the point of a gun in 1921. You weren’t fit to inhabit the pure revolutionary Ireland conceived by the glorious dead of 1916-1923. You were possessed of the devil and the devil had to be beaten out of you. You had to be locked up so that your deviance couldn’t contaminate the pristine purity of Holy Ireland.
Payment of money does not rectify the injustice done to you in childhood – even if you have chosen to equate money with justice by signing the waiver and acquiescing in the fake history.
You will recall that in a previous incarnation Mr (later Justice) Sean Ryan – an old boy of the Christian Brothers – designed the terms of the Redress Board offer. Mr Ryan asserted that the child prison scandal was “an unfortunate tragedy” (i.e. some kind of unavoidable accident). He also claimed, disingenuously, that the State’s “reparation measures” amounted to fulfilment by the State of its Constitutional obligations to the complainants. (see par. 1.2 http://www.childabusecommission.ie/events/documents/Ryan%20Review.pdf )
Mr Ryan knows perfectly well that the State’s “reparation measures” do nothing to vindicate the rights of the former child prisoners.
If you ever make the mistake of imagining that you are a full Irish citizen just get out your illegal detention order and ask yourself why the State refuses to rescind it. The State claims that revising a court order would contravene the separation of powers principle. But the State has revised such orders wholesale in the cases of duly convicted IRA terrorists (under the Belfast Agreement of 1998).It is a national scandal that those such as you and me who were illegally imprisoned in childhood are considered lesser citizens than the terrorists.
I’ve asked the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee to disclose the amounts of the improper payments of public monies made to so-called support group leaders. Tight-lipped silence is the response.
You quote certain rules that applied to Ireland’s child prisons (“certified schools”). You appear to have quoted the 1912 Rules and Regulations for Certified Schools in Ireland signed by Augustine Birrell, then Chief Secretary for Ireland. Those rules were superseded by the 1933 Rules and Regulations for Certified Schools in Saorstat Eireann, signed by Thomas Derrig, then Free State Education Minister (and ex-IRA gunman). There are differences between these two sets of rules. For example, whereas the 1912 Rules permit confinement in “a lighted cell”, the 1933 Rules do not authorise that form of ill-treatment.
The 1933 Rules are given at Ryan (2009) 1.4.02. I can send the 1912 and 1885 Rules to any reader on request.
Jim Beresford, former Artane child prisoner 14262, Huddersfield, England
jim.beresford@btinternet.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Essential text of Redress Board’s “Acceptance and Waiver”:
I…………….hereby accept the award in the sum of…………………, and communicated to me by notice dated………….., and in accordance with section 13(6) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002, I hereby waive any right of action which I may otherwise have had against any public body within the meaning of section 1(1) of the Act or against any person who has made a contribution under section 23(3) of the Act and I further agree to discontinue any other proceedings initiated by me against any such public body or person arising out of the circumstances of my application before the Board.
I acknowledge that prior to signing this document, I have been advised by the Board of my entitlement to obtain my own legal advice as to its meaning and effect in law and have also been advised that it would be in my best interest to obtain such advice. (I further acknowledge that I have received such advice before signing this document*). (*delete as appropriate).
“Public body” is defined in section 1(1) as meaning “a Department of State, a Minister of the Government, a court, a health board, and a local authority for the purposes of the Local Government Act, 2001.”
Well said MM. If I remember from the good teaching the nuns beat into me the Pope is only infallible when he speaks “Ex Cathedra” (From the chair). I wonder does that mean that I’m infallible all the time. I speak “Ex Cathedra”!
Hi Paddy:
And the Pope should go….
– as head of the Church?
or
– as head of the Vatican State?
What happened to the infallibility bit !!
:-)
… the Church is infallible in her objective definitive teaching regarding faith and MORALS, not that believers are infallible in their subjective interpretation of her teaching
MM
David
This Dr Drennan is so out of touch. But so too are the other Bishops and the Pope. How can people get the message across to them that “They have to go”.
This Pope has to go too as he was aware of this when he was a Cardinal from all indicators and he did nothing. Why hasn’t he got rid of Cardinal Law?
I had a dream this morning, a wonderful dream. The mass ended and the priest withdrew to the sacristy with his alter boys and the faithful were to leave the building just as they always do, but this time they remained seated. Nobody left, instead from outside people arrived, a few at a time.Then a few more and entered the church and sat down. There was a buzz in the air and the priest peeped from the sacristy in wonder at the laity who remained seated. “What are they doing?, and why are people entering the church in their hundreds?.What is the meaning of this?. I must ring the Bishop or should I ring the police?.Many were former prisoners of the occupation power and many were ordinary members of the laity. By this time the priest was very nervous and locked himself in to the sacristy and rang the Bishop. “The church is occupied ” he roared in to the telephone. “What” screamed the Bishop. “The laity are in revolt” “we can’t have that” said the Bishop. “Get then out at once” he ordered the priest.” I can’t” replied the priest ” they are several hundred and more are entering the church every minute. “Shall I ring the police? asked the priest. Yes! roared the Bishop, empty the church.”I don’t think that is a very good idea,” said the priest. “This could blow up in our face.” “We have to play smart” “We can’t use the old way, not after Ryan and Murphy and Ferns and Cloyne”.”They have a list of demands” said the priest to the mighty Bishop.”They are demanding that you resign to day.” “What” screamed the Bishop. “They have other demands as well” replied the priest. “Are they making demands on me” “Send in the storm troops” I’m not having any of this” said the Bishop who by this time was spluttering and sweating. The one thing the Roman Catholic Church feared most had happened, a revolt by the laity.
“”Mental reservations””, form no part of this bishop Drennan`s tenacious fight to cling to his mitre …He has just done a Brutus on Desmond Connell by laying the blame for his , Drennan`s, troubles at the feet of the wily Dessie .. I know nothing , I saw nothing , I heard nothing, I was just an aul bishop doin` me job in Dublin, so says Drennan . That should go down well in the vatican , an “honest” Irish bishop, things are looking up . The passivity of this hierarchy to its cancerous silence on the horrific abuse of children by its known and protected paedophiles, must by implication be non-divine. Its prevarications, non-admissions and sickening rhetoric of publicly declared self-exculpations with its miserly mea-culpa`s earmark it as literally beyond redemption. These bishops and other assorted lower class religious orders stand accused of supporting tyranny and inhuman acts of depravity upon innocent children . Children , according to their doctrinal bulls and other papal non-sense, were the future “””Jewels of a Nation”””. Since November we have witnessed this hierarchy being stripped apart, its enduring hostility to secularism and its inherent probative values, which encompass modernity, has been regularly top of the agenda for these bishops at their Maynooth “”assemblies”” to constantly attack modernity and social progress as modern day “pariahs” which the Irish Nation had to be protected from .
With “deference” now on the back burner, can we take it that the Dail is no longer tactitly dependent upon their “”lordships” approval to the enactment of State policies..??. No longer, it seems , can their “lordships” advocate that knowledge is a high abstraction based on “morals and doctrinal bull” to impose on the people of Ireland a conscious discrimination to a “follow the herd” mentality of a hierarchy so steeped in criminal activity, that it begs the question of “how could it happen”.
The past five weeks have seen the bishops engage in a PR stunt in leading public interest away from clerical sexual terrorism to a more “acceptable” tenet of “lack of communication” being the primary medium in which these acts of inhuman depravity practised upon children flourished . This hierarchy, we are led to believe, has its own scholars, “canon” lawyers, qualified barristers ,theologans, scriptural interpreters, professors, lecturer`s, tutors, the spectre of so much talent, so many bishops , archbishops, and a cardinal, sitting around a table discussing acts of barbarity being perpetrated on innocent children, condoning it, suppressing it, affording protection for it, quietly paying for it, and then COLLECTIVELY usurping the laws of the State by failing to report it, these same “princes” of the church are asking the people of Ireland to PRAY FOR THEM, FORGIVE THEM , AND PLEASE KEEP US IN THE LUXURY TO WHICH WE ARE ACCUSTOMED …?……… When are they going to start talking about the CHILDREN WHO WERE RAPED, BUGGERED, SODOMIZED, AND OTHERWISE BRUTALLY ABUSED . Its time for their “lordships” to grasp the nettle and stop pussyfooting around .
Well said Barry.
Now indeed is: to first reflect, then consider the action(s) that need to be taken by all the individuals who have, as I consider, again been led through a process of exploitation and a denial of free speech by what I consider a totally misplaced device, the Redress Board, which was servicing only the misappropriated aims of some government ministers and representatives that was to the benefit of this discredited church, rather than its victims, whom it always claimed to be serving.
I wonder which of the many representative organisations will display leadership by considering the initiation of the appropriate challenges under the Constitution and if this is needed, beyond.
MM
A TRIBUTE TO THE VICTIMS OF CLERICAL SEX ABUSE.
CHRIS DE BURGH – THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL (giving him huge credit for singing it at the Gaiety in August)
(I’m trying to get the Radio Stations to play it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLkDEMeLtPI
Brother, there’s a man at the gate, he has something in his hand;
He says it fell down from the sky, should I let him in?
Maybe it’s an omen, maybe it will take away our sin, our sin…..
‘Tis a diamond that he has, the biggest one I’ve ever seen,
And when he holds it in his hand, it’s shining like the sun,
He says it’s from another world, he calls it the mirror of the soul;
We must place it on the altar high, send the Devil to the fire,
Power over men we’ll have when they see it shine, when they see it shine;
Brother, fetch the Abbot now, tell him of this wondrous thing,
Tell him that we’ll have control of all the riches it will bring;
When people come to see it, for money we will purify their souls, their souls;
With my knife I’ll kill this man, I’ll send him to the Promised Land,
And when we take the diamond, we will have the future in our hands,
In our hands;
When we place it on the altar high, send the Devil to the fire,
Power over men we’ll have when they see it shine, when they see it shine!
That’s how it started, that whole new religion, and people everywhere,
Had to give up all their possessions at the Abbé St. Pierre,
But with their gold they could buy a redemption, and the promise of
Eternal life,
And the centre of it all was a diamond divine,
It was up there on the altar high but for the monks it would not shine,
So with subterfuge they used the light of the sun, fooling everyone;
It was late at night when a young boy was in there with his friends,
And they dared him up to the altar, to touch the famous gem,
And when he did, the whole place exploded with a great and wonderful light,
And people came from everywhere to see it,
When he took it from the altar high, everyone could make it shine,
Except the Abbot and his men, for them, no light,
They could not make it shine.
And in the end, many heard the brothers, making confession of the
Things they had done,
And the Abbot led that sad procession, as they went through the
Gate past the place where it had begun;
And all their dreams of glory, all their schemes and stories,
Would come to nothing after all,
Because a power greater from the world’s creator
Gave us love to light the mirror of the soul,
Only love can light the mirror of the soul;
All through the world, there are many others, who always follow
Everything they are told,
By men with rules and regulations, using old superstitions and
Tales to assume control;
But all their dreams of glory, all their schemes and stories,
Will come to nothing after all,
Because a power greater from the world’s creator
Gave us love to light the mirror of the soul,
Only love can light the mirror of the soul;
They come to nothing after all;
Because a power greater from the world’s creator
Gave us love to light the mirror of the soul,
Only love can light the mirror of the soul.
Bloody brilliant Barry!
YOUR RIGHTS AS VICTIMS OF INSTITUTIONAL ABUSE
[And Your Means To An End}
With the Redress Board in its final stages of receiving cases, and with the post Ryan Report confronting it and now the Murphy Report copper fastening its findings, it is now time to look again. I believed then as now that the Redress Board was nothing more than a smokescreen to deny full reflective compensation for victims of:
INSTITUTIONAL INCARCERATION, IMPRISONMENT, ABUSE AND THE VIOLATION OF OUR RIGHTS UNDER THE IRISH CONSTITUTION AND COMMON AND EU LAW.
This has proved over time to be correct. Below is the blue print for our cases and the means to an end for real justice:
Mushroom support groups [who were really supporting themselves] were everywhere urging us to take the only offer around, along with solicitors urging us foward for the little there was so they could get more. ‘Honest Bertie’, heralded it all in with his guarded apology among all the other apologises and was rightly seen as the cleverest man in the room. This is not a compliment. All the time the dye had been cast and it seemed all over before it had even begun. At least that is until now for it was all just a big con and we fell asleep at the wheel. I hope never, ever again. Please bear with me a little while longer.
Let us look at the core reasons for our incarceration. Broadly, it covered children that were illegitimate, destitute, and crimes for stealing apples and truancy. Then there was the ‘fallen women’ who had their babies wrestled from them along with single parents. The word ‘bastard’ and ‘illegitimate’ were used in a literal legal sense to keep them locked up. Words do not not only play a vital part in the interpretation of the law but is also used to subvert the law and is common to promoting social prejudices. They are also our road to justice.
For example the words, ‘illegitimate and bastard’ are defined in the Oxford Dictionary as: A person of an unmarried mother, unlawful, improper criminal. In other language it simply means you do not have a right right be here. The word ‘black’ is defined as angry, gloomy, implying disgrace, sinister, deadly, portending trouble. African blood was not colour coded by accident but by design. There is a lot of meanings for these words and it is with words in a coutroom that we will win our fight for the wrongful detainment, incarceration, and imprisonment of children. The following are the legal outlines of our cases and they are formidable:
Under the Irish Constitution then as now, it states that the impercebtible rights of the child should be upheld at all times. A broad definition but clear in its intent for what benefits the child solely, and in all its interpretations, is for the common good, love, care, respect and moral growth of the child. It cannot be defined any other way. For us it was violated in all its translations and amounted to a gross violation of our statutory rights as children. We were not confined to any professional care facility of any kind but sent to prisons as defined by their own codes of conduct, rules and regulations. This was assisted by the state in their implementation of those rules along with a wide range of other supports.
This is the cornerstone of our case. These prisons were classed in sub-categories as reformatories and industrial schools. Below are some of those rules of those prisons that were upheld by the state:
Rule 7: Children under 14 shall be given school instruction for three hours daily.
Rule 9: Children shall be employed for not less than six hours daily in manual labour.
Rule 14: a] Children who misbehave shall be confined for up to two days in a lighted cell and can be allowed one pound of bread, milk or water.
B] Beatings as punishment to include cane or birch.
Rule 16: Children’s parents or others shall be allowed to visit but can have privilages revoked at any time within the period of their detention.
Rule 17: Children can be released on licence but it can be revoked at any time within the period of their detention.
Rule 22: Children who are certified as medically unfit for detention shall be released. In the case of serious illness of any inmate notice shall be sent to parents so that special visits are allowed.
Rule 24: Children who suffer sudden and violent death or under suspicious circumstance, a report of the circumstances of the inmates death to be reported to the Gardai for the information of the coroner.
Rule 25: Children under detention shall have a report every three months on their discharge or admission.
Rule 28: Children sent to reformatory or industrial school institution by order of detention, he or she must be Roman Catholic.
All of the above was approved under section 54 of the children’s act 1908. Despite amendments to the Act none of the rules and regulations regarding reformatories and Industrial Institutions were ever rescinded or abolished. It was in fact underpinned in the 1980’s when corporal punishment was outlawed in Ireland but not for these prisons that were made exempt and given a special dispensation to carry on as ‘normal’.
The term inmate, inmates, detention, detentions, escape and escapees are used liberally in almost every document when relating to the reformatories/ industrial institutions, and are rubber stamped accordingly as one and the same.
The literal translation for the word detained is: kept in custody, or lock up.
Translation for the word detainee: Person kept in custody.
The word escape: Free of restriction or control.
The word inmate speaks for itself.
The word reformatory: For the reform of children.
The point being pushed here again is that these were places of detention and imprisonment for convictions without crime. The real crime was their convictions. This case has to be answered and reflective compensation realized for the victims of this forced incarceration and for those lost years with all its attendent horrors. The Redress Act of 2002 and its amendments never even once covered any of the above violations.
The Redress Act only dealt with abuse within the walls of those prisons and against the employees of such. On acceptance of an award any injured party or victim was in turn prevented from recovering same in any other court action. No reference of any kind is made in the Redress Act regarding wrongful imprisonment, forced incarceration, or kidnapping by the state. By that omission alone clears the battlefield for us in every legal sense.
All wrongful convictions and imprisonments are based on the conviction itself and by itself your constitutional rights were violated. There is now no governing restriction like the Redress Act to hamper or delay us. Each case is only individual by how many years you served in these prisons.
The Redress Act itself now lies shattered and prostrate anyway and has as much power left as Canon Law. This was helped by the Ryan and Murphy report and for those yet to come that has effectively nullified the act. It will not get any easier for the Government and we should not let it be any easier.
The broad contents of this letter was originally sent to some media groups in January of 2006 including my concerns about support groups. Back then they were concerned about the implications of the Redress Act if they reported what I am reporting now. This is understandable for the Act was designed to intimidate and protect the defendants in this case which are the government and the Catholic Church. It is ironic that both these monoliths by their lies and ‘mental reservations’ keep giving us the ammunition to fight back. All I can ask is: what are you doing about it?
This letter should be your Bible and legal template to get reflective compensation. With it too I hope to give you the gun to use that ammunition for without you, you, and you, those guns will remain silent, or worse reduced to water pistols. Do not wait for others to do it for you or at the very least put on the kettle for them so they can have a break. Even those that do the least can still help those that do the most. This is our means to an end.
Barry Clifford
Oughterard
Galway
EMAIL: bgclifford@iol.ie