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	We Mustn’t Forget Sins of the Past Belfast Telegraph May 22, 2009 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/viewpoint/we-mustnrsquot-forget-sins-of-the-past-14311874.html The explosive contents of the Ryan Commission report are staggering in their revelations. Thousands of children were raped and thousands more were physically and mentally abused over a period of three decades in 250 Catholic Church-run institutions in the Republic. It was, quite literally, abuse of children on an industrial scale. The abusers, some who were serial abusers, were able to get away with their evil perversions thanks to the submissiveness of the state authorities towards the Church. The real control of the institutions lay in the hands of clergy, Christian Brothers and nuns. It may seem inconceivable that the abuse went unreported and without investigation for so long. However, it has to be remembered that the Church exercised enormous influence in the fledgling Republic right up until recent years. Indeed, it was the unmasking of serial abusers within the ranks of the clergy which eventually led to that influence diminishing. Even in most recent times the reflex action of the Church was to shift abusing clergy away from the scenes of their crimes rather than hand them over to the police. The failure of the Church’s hierarchy to act decisively against the predators in its own ranks when the allegations first arose is to its eternal shame. The children at the centre of the Ryan Commission investigation were the most vulnerable in society. While it was not unexpected that institutions like industrial schools were fairly harsh environments in the days dating from the late 1930s, what happened to those children within those walls almost beggars belief. The children were let down by the state, the authorities and the people charged with their welfare. It is little wonder that they are still angry at what happened to them. They have every right to be so — and the rest of society should share in that anger. But, lest we think that the abuse of innocent children is confined to the past and to another part of this island, reports in this newspaper today show that it is still a problem — and a problem on our own doorsteps. Evidence gained through Freedom of Information requests show that a baby was seriously injured by his father who had been convicted of the manslaughter of another of his children; a child living in foster care was forced to scavenge for food in bins and a 14-year-old girl was raped by her foster father, who killed himself when she revealed what had happened. The cases reported today are of a different scale to the endemic and systemic abuse of children reported in the Republic but the effects on the individual children involved are similar. They suffered because they had no-one to turn to. They were abused by people who should have cared for them. It is difficult to detect crimes of abuse of children carried out in their own homes and Health Minister Michael McGimpsey is to create additional child protection posts. That is a welcome development, but the statutory authorities cannot be everywhere and rely on the public to help expose abuse. We should never turn a blind eye to the suffering of little children lest we repeat the unforgiveable sins of the past.
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