In Plain Sight Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports
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In Plain Sight Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports Carole Holohan 1 In Plain Sight: Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports Comissioned by Amnesty International Ireland Carole Holohan BA, MA, PhD is the primary author. Some research for chapters one and three was externally commissioned. Published September 2011 © Amnesty International Ireland Seán MacBride House 48 Fleet Street Dublin 2 Ireland Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism or review, no part of this document may be reproduced without permission. ISBN 978-0-9555600-4-0 Photography from 'The Echo of a Silent Cry' by Dianne Whyte. Typeset in Trade Gothic Design by swollen.ie Printed by Colorman In Plain Sight “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Contents 7 Preface 14 The Advisory Group 15 Acknowledgements 17 Introduction 27 Summary and Key Findings 43 Chapter 1: The Human Rights Abuses 48 Children’s Rights 52 Specific Rights Abuses 52 Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment 67 Right to Private and Family Life 71 Due Process Rights for Children in Conflict with the Law 73 Right to be free from Slavery and Forced labour 75 Social and Economic Rights 77 Right to be free from Discrimination 79 Accountability for Human Rights Violations 79 The State 84 Private Individuals 86 Civil Society 103 Chapter 2: Why did this happen? 106 Responsibility and Accountability: Who was responsible? 106 Non-State Actors - Agents of the Roman Catholic Church 133 State Actors 170 Wider Society 186 Identity and Status: Who was abused? 186 Class 191 Threats to the ‘Moral Order’ 193 Disability 196 Ethnicity 201 Attitudes to Children: Why didn’t we listen? 202 Children and Residential Institutions 203 Children and the Courts 206 The Voice of the Child 209 Contributors' Responses 287 Chapter 3: Lessons for Today 291 Children Today 313 Institutional Settings 316 The Catholic Church and Child Protection 319 Other Allegations of Past Abuses 322 Role of the Public 325 Contributors' Responses 385 Chapter 4: Key Findings 409 Annex 1: Evolving Status of Children’s Rights 417 Annex 2: Red C Opinion Poll 423 Annex 3: Past Abuses 7 Preface There is an obvious, clear and compelling reason why Amnesty International Ireland might commission research such as In Plain Sight. The issue central to this research, the abuse and exploitation of tens of thousands of Irish children in State funded institutions as detailed in the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (the Ryan Report) and the abuse detailed in the Ferns, Murphy (Dublin) and Cloyne Reports, constitute arguably the gravest and most systemic human rights violations in the history of this State. Therefore, it is vital that these violations, and the State’s responses to them, be assessed against the standards dictated by international human rights law. For those children who experienced rape and sexual abuse, physical abuse and economic exploitation it is vital that their experiences be recognised as grave human rights violations and breaches of law. Even post the publication of the Ryan Report there were those who sought to minimise the horrific reality of the abuse inflicted upon so many of our most marginalised and vulnerable children. There have been voices that have sought to dismiss systemic and barbaric cruelty as the norm in the Ireland of the time. Such voices must not be permitted to rewrite or diminish this history, neither now nor in the future, and for that reason it is vital that Amnesty International use the language of international law to clearly name the violations inflicted upon children for what they were. Systemic and repeated rape isn’t just child sexual abuse and systemic and ritualised beatings are not merely corporal punishment; they amount to torture in certain circumstances and the degree to which that In Plain Sight 8 applies in the context of the Ryan Report particularly must be properly named. But the focus cannot be purely on the past, as if this history has no relevance for our society now. We must consider the degree to which this history reveals vital truths about the nature of our society today. The past only becomes history once we have addressed it, learnt from it and made the changes necessary to ensure that we do not repeat mistakes and wrongdoing. It is widely accepted that the widespread abuse of children documented in the various reports considered by this research was made possible because the State adopted a deferential attitude to the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. The State failed to honour its obligations to children and vulnerable adults it placed in the ‘care’ of church run, State funded institutions. It failed to investigate and prosecute allegations of child sexual abuse made against priests and religious with the same rigour that it investigated and prosecuted others accused of the same crimes. It failed to protect and support the most vulnerable children in our society, those living on the margins in some way due to poverty, family status, ethnicity of because pf some arbitrary judgement that they were morally suspect. Instead it pushed them further to the edge of the margins, effectively ‘othering’ them, deeming them unworthy of social inclusion and rightful legal protection. They were made invisible, turned into outsiders by their own society, and abandoned to multiple abuses and experiences of exploitation. As such the State deferred to unaccountable and powerful interests and failed to protect the rights and needs of its people. It often responded to allegations and concerns of criminal activity not by investigating the wrongdoer but by diminishing and dismissing the victim. The law was applied, or indeed ignored, to protect the powerful not the powerless. In Plain Sight 9 Preface Accountability has become something of a buzzword in Ireland over the past few years. After the collapse of many of the supposed pillars of our society we have begun to look, albeit somewhat belatedly, at the concept of accountability. But our focus seems not to be on the broad application and value of the principle of accountability as an essential tool to guide good decision-making and governance, but rather on accountability as a means to apportion blame for past failings and to impose sanctions upon those who have failed or wronged us. This approach is in my view symptomatic of a deeper problem: a culturally systemic failure to appreciate the value of both responsibility and accountability as something other than a burden to be borne or something to be dodged so as to avoid sanction. Our approach to accountability is not one that encourages an honest and frank exploration of failure or error in an effort to properly analyse why or how mistakes have been made, but one that seems to seek scapegoats as a first reflex. That’s not to say of course that accountability does not require an acceptance of responsibility for wrongdoing and the passing of an appropriate sanction where required; but real, meaningful accountability must be about more than that. Accountability is not simply a means through which we react to or repair failure or wrongdoing. It is a vital tool for those charged with making complex and difficult decisions; one that can guide and strengthen decision making and the development of law, policy and practice. Real accountability requires for instance that those in positions of authority who make decisions which impact significantly on the lives of others should consult with and be accountable to those same people in making such decisions and in implementing them. In this way accountability becomes a vital tool to inform good decision-making and ensure that policy decisions serve the very people they most affect. Essentially accountability demands that power be answerable to those that it is intended to serve. In a republican democracy such as Ireland the power exercised by the various organs of the State is power conferred upon the State by its citizens. In that context the need for accountability becomes even In Plain Sight 10 clearer. The State is the people, and those charged with acting for the general good of society should be clearly and meaningfully accountable to the people in whose name they act. There is no doubt that there have been enormous failures in the application of the principle of accountability in Ireland. For example, there is a general perception that the law does not apply to everyone equally. The letters pages of our national newspapers have been littered with letters highlighting how a different standard of accountability seems to apply to the transgressions of those in positions of power than to, for example, a person on the poverty line who cannot pay their television licence. The fact that a person living on the poverty line can be sent to prison for non-payment of their television licence whilst those responsible for catastrophic failures in the governance of our banking system appear to be above the law, is often flagged as proof that this is the case. Accountability must first and foremost be concerned with an honest and courageous openness to learning what went wrong in any given context in order to ensure that we address the deficiencies at the individual or systemic level that either tolerated or caused the error or wrongdoing. Once in place accountability mechanisms serve as a preventative tool, preventing wrongdoing and informing better practice and not simply reacting after the fact to mistakes and wrongdoing. But the Ryan, Ferns, Murphy (Dublin) and Cloyne Reports reveal a deep seated failure to appreciate and incorporate effective accountability into our society and systems.