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| "I accept that the boys experienced enormous anxiety and fear". |
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| You have heard evidence, which I think you don't doubt, that bare fists were used from time to time?
A. I certainly don't doubt that the open hand was used. |
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| They had to accept "there was quite an amount of truth in what people were saying to us, perhaps even more than we knew at that stage". |
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| Most staff, many with little education and none with training in childcare, were from rural backgrounds. |
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| they came across institutions where children were being punished, not at the time of a misdemeanour, but were later gathered on a stairway, were made to strip off, and were then beaten. |
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| Saturday, September 11, 2004 |
| Abuse in institutions noted by officials |
Later yesterday the committee was told by Father Joe O'Reilly, provincial of the Rosminian Institute of Charity in Ireland, that when corporal punishment was banned in 1982, the Attorney General advised it did not extend to industrial schools. Through the 1990s also, the order began apologising for this, mainly through the media, and then in a formal public apology in 1999, he said. They had to accept "there was quite an amount of truth in what people were saying to us, perhaps even more than we knew at that stage".
The secretary general of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Tim Dalton, said yesterday a colleague told him in 1989 that children in some residential institutions had been abused physically in a systematic way involving humiliation. Mr Dalton said a principal officer at the Department, the deceased Mr Dick Crowe, said that when he (Mr Crowe) worked with the Kennedy committee, which investigated the institutions between 1967 and 1970, they came across institutions where children were being punished, not at the time of a misdemeanour, but were later gathered on a stairway, were made to strip off, and were then beaten.
Mr Dalton was giving evidence to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Dublin yesterday. Father O'Reilly said his order had sought such advice. The order managed St Joseph's industrial school at Clonmel, Co Tipperary; St Patrick's industrial school at Upton, Co Cork, which closed as an industrial school in 1966; and St Joseph's school for the visually impaired at Drumcondra in Dublin. Father O'Reilly said that in 1979 a member was expelled from the order within weeks of allegations of sex abuse being made against him by three boys at St Joseph's in Clonmel.
Psychiatric help was organised for the accused man and for the boys, while the Department of Education and other authorities were informed, he said. There was another allegation against another member of the order some time later that year, he added. In 1990, Father James Flynn, now the order's superior general in Rome but then its provincial in Ireland, apologised for the treatment of boys at "old Ferryhouse" (St Joseph's in Clonmel). Speaking at the opening of a refurbished St Joseph's that year, in the company of then minister for education, Ms O'Rourke, and then Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the House) , Mr Seán Treacy, Father Flynn said the regime at the old school had been of "extreme severity, even brutality" and asked, on behalf of the order, for forgiveness.
Father O'Reilly said that through the 1990s, as more and more survivors came forward, the order had to accept that there "were children who were abused in our institutions in the past". Sexual and physical abuse were involved, at St Joseph's Clonmel mainly, he said, while things were "not as clear" at Upton. He said the order agreed to contribute to the Government redress scheme "guided by the maxim 'do no more harm'."
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posted by The Knitter @ 8:29 AM  |
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| Friday, September 10, 2004 |
| Papal Visit Rape |
Father Patrick Pierce, manager in 1975-91 of St Joseph's Industrial School, Ferryhouse, Co Tipperary, told the committee the boy had not been allowed accompany his colleagues to the Pope's Mass as punishment for absconding. The brother who raped him had been a prefect at the school and volunteered to stay back with the boy. Father Pierce interviewed X the next day. He denied the allegations at first, then, when told the boys were willing to confront him, backed down.The investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was told yesterday that a boy, prevented from attending Pope John Paul's Mass in Limerick in September 1979, was raped by the brother left in charge of him.
Father Pierce, who was recalling that in November 1979 he first learned about the abuse of boys at St Joseph's by "Brother X", became upset while giving his evidence. "Little did we know we were living with an abuser," he said, and "in the very unit \ younger children would be better protected." He recalled how that night he had left some staff home, as was the practice, when he decided to drive around to see whether there might be any sign of two boys who had absconded that day. They were from the south, and he headed in that direction. Six or seven miles farther on he found them. They had thumbed him for a lift. They got in the car. He asked why they had run away. The boy in the front seat said they had been beaten up, and Father Pierce responded along the lines of "Pull the other one".
He noticed the front-seat boy went silent, then broke down "and said Brother X was at him". Father Pierce recalled "immediate impact". There was silence until they got back to the school. He took the boy to his office, cautioned him as to the seriousness of what he was saying, and they talked more. He suggested to Father Pierce that another boy could back up what he said. The second boy was brought down from a dormitory. It was he who had been raped by Brother X while the rest attended the Pope's Mass in Limerick. Both boys "unfolded a most horrific story of what had been happening to them". They agreed to face X with their allegations.
He was confined to his quarters and removed from the school the next day. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Dublin. Three weeks later he was returned to his own home and later was dismissed from the Rosminian congregation. The Rosminians' Irish provincial at the time was closely involved in all decisions concerning the case. Father Pierce reported it to the Department of Education, informed X's local parish of what had occurred, as well as a judge at the Children's Court in Dublin which X had been known to attend regularly prior to his joining the Rosminians. Gardaí were not told then. "I have to honestly say I didn't know about reporting to the gardaí. I probably should have," Father Pierce said.
However, when the Conference of Religious of Ireland issued guidelines on dealing with sex abuse cases in the early 1990s, he then reported the case to a Garda superintendent in Clonmel. X was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, three suspended. Father Pierce recalled that, although one of the boys said in court he had forgiven X, he (Father Pierce) still found this difficult. He had visited others in the prison where X is detained, "but I have never been able to bring myself to see him". |
| posted by The Knitter @ 7:10 AM |
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| A number of sex abusers resided in Ferryhouse |
A number of sex abusers had connections to the industrial school at Ferryhouse, the investigations committee of the child abuse commission was told yesterday. Father Patrick Pierce gave evidence about three other abusers, apart from "Brother X". He said he was appointed Irish provincial of the Rosminian congregation in 1991, and in July 1992 ITV broadcast a programme about abuse, after which he received a call from his counterpart in England.
He said he had been contacted by a man in Wales alleging that an Irish Rosminian priest, who had been a prefect at Ferryhouse in the 1960s, had attempted to abuse him on a visit to Ireland. The man then contacted Father Pierce about the priest, who was then serving in an Irish parish. Father Pierce contacted the local bishop, and the priest who was the subject of the complaint was sent to a treatment centre at Stroud in England. The man complaining did not want police involved. The priest left the ministry. In 1994 a former resident at Ferryhouse lodged a complaint against him.
This was reported to gardaí in Clonmel, and the former priest was convicted in 1999. Another incident involving a former resident at Ferryhouse took place at a Rosminian aftercare centre in Dublin on the night of the Ireland-Egypt World Cup game in 1994. The young man concerned had been staying at the centre. He and a Brother there had been drinking and, later, as the young man slept at the centre he awoke to find the Brother attempting a sexual assault. He ran off and told a relative of the Brother, who contacted Father Pierce. The young man wanted no one to be informed. Later he went to the Garda, and the Brother, who by then had left the Rosminian congregation, was convicted in 2000.
Following complaints to gardaí a layman who had assisted with pantomimes at Ferryhouse "over a long number of years" was charged with sex abuse offences and was convicted in 2002. In the late 1980s a complaint of abuse against a priest at Ferryhouse was withdrawn by a boy within 12 to 14 hours of it being made. The boy had been home for a weekend and did not want to return to Ferryhouse. He told his mother he was being abused by the priest. He later admitted this was not true and why he had made the allegation. The committee's hearings have now gone into private session where evidence will be heard from 32 former residents at Ferryhouse. This is scheduled to continue to the end of October, when the Rosminian provincial, Father Joe O'Reilly, and Father Pierce may be recalled for further questioning in public session. |
| posted by The Knitter @ 7:04 AM |
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| About Me |
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Name: The Knitter
Home: Ireland
About Me: The Ryan Report
I hold fast to the view that there must be no more deals, secret or otherwise done between Religious orders and the Government of Ireland without indepth consultation with people who were abused while in the care of religious orders or the state.
See my complete profile
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