BishopAccountability.org
	If You Can Bail out the Banks, Why Not Child Abusers? Social Workers Party May 22, 2009 http://www.swp.ie/index.php?page=123&dept=News The terrible revelations about child abuse in industrial school that were run religious orders has lifted the lid on how the Irish states works. The Ryan Report disclosed that there were over 800 known abusers in over 200 institutions during a period of 35 years. At the time complaints were made to the Garda, to the Department of Education, to health boards and to the religious – but the abuse was systematically covered up. As well as routine sexual abuse, children were subjected to being flogged, kicked . . . scalded, burned and held under water and having heads shaved and suffering ritual floggings by those in the religious institutions supposedly responsible for their welfare. The report also reveals the exploitation of little children forced to spend hours threading rosary beads which were sold for profit. In one industrial school with hundreds of children, there was just one full-time cook in the kitchen to feed the children—boys were forced to help out. Yet in the same school the 24 Christian Brothers had two qualified chefs and a bevy of maids to serve them their sumptuous meals. In any civilised society the Christian Brothers would be designated a criminal conspiracy and its assets seized to compensate its unfortunate victims. Not with Fianna Fail though. In the past, middle class figures from the Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty Children went around working class estates ‘shovelling’ in children to supply the industrial schools. They were known as the ‘cruelty’ men because of the way they who took away children and terrorised people. A distinct class bias was evident in the over-representation of Dublin working class children in the hellholes, known as industrial schools. But the abuse is still continuing because Irish state funds are being used to indemnify the child abusers. In 2002, Michael Woods, struck an amazing deal with the Catholic Church. For the modest price of ˆ127 million, the religious orders transferred the unlimited liability for compensating victims onto the state. The total bill for the redress scheme is expected to hit ˆ1.3 billion or even more, for which the Irish taxpayer will pick up the tab. Woods later claimed that his strong Catholic beliefs made him the most suitable person to negotiate this deal. He describes himself as a ‘Christian first, then a Catholic’ and said he kept in mind the ‘helpfulness and generosity’ of the Church during negotiations. He excluded legal experts from negotiations claiming that ‘the legal people simply couldn’t have attended – it was a no go area – for them- they had fallen out with the religious.’ Compensation costs for the abuse are now likely to run over ˆ1.3 billion but none of the 18 religious orders want to accept any re-negotiation of Woods’ deal. These same religious orders make up the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) who have an institutional role in social partnership negations. There they made vague statements about fighting ‘social exclusion’ while always urging workers to accept lower wage rises. But their astounding hypocrisy is now revealed as they effectively rob the state of resources by making taxpayers pay for the crimes their order committed. A similar hypocrisy surround FF and Green politicians. They claim that Woods’ deal cannot be re-opened for legal reasons. But they had no legal problems re-opening the pension arrangements for of every public servant when they rammed through a pension levy this year. We are witnessing a shabby little arrangement that is designed to stop the bankruptcy of religious orders that were involved in child abuse. Just as the state bails out the banks, it equally bails out the child abusers. If ever there was an argument for revolution, this filth shows it.
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