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	Church Must Pay for Ruined Childhoods The Sunday Times May 24, 2009 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6350703.ece No amount of money can erase more than 40 years of torture - but the state has a responsibility to make amends The thousands of Irish children who once lived in state institutions and whose lives were destroyed by sadistic priests and nuns have waited decades for their stories to be told and the truth of their plight to emerge. When the details of the abuse and torture they were subjected to were unveiled last week the reaction from the public was palpable. If the world was shocked at the depravity of Josef Fritzl in Austria, who fathered seven children by his daughter while keeping her locked in a cellar for 24 years, how could it comprehend the systemic torture that went on behind closed doors in our industrial schools and orphanages over 40 years? Reports of abuse had surfaced previously in TV documentaries and memoirs, but they had always been denied vigorously and the complainants characterised as cranks. The truth of those claims has finally been revealed in vivid detail. Those who work in social services will argue there are continuing concerns about the treatment of children in care, but the country described in the report published by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is unrecognisable from the Ireland of today. This was a country where children whose only crime was to be poor or parentless were treated as criminals, locked away, used as economic slaves and left at the mercy of sexual predators and perpetrators of mindless violence. This was a country where the authorities, in the guise of the Department of Education, turned a blind eye to the evil being perpetrated in their name, adopting, in the words of the commission, a “deferential and submissive” attitude towards the religious congregations who managed these schools that “compromised its ability” to carry out its statutory duty of inspection. The last of these cruel institutions closed in 1975, but for those whose lives were crushed by their experiences in them, the memories will never be extinguished. Batt O’Keeffe, the minister for Education, is correct to say the wrongs of the past cannot be undone, but the apologies issued by the government have a hollow ring. The deal it entered into on the eve of the 2002 general election, which capped the financial compensation of religious orders at €128m and protected the identities of the perverts who engaged in torture, is recent enough to draw a line between the events of three decades ago and contemporary politicians and agents of the state. Having handed its responsibilities for these children to religious orders in the first place, it is right the state should bear its share of financial responsibility when the final bill for compensation has been compiled. But it is outrageous that the deal entered into by Michael Woods, the then education minister, has left taxpayers exposed for more than €1 billion. With all the bad news now out, the religious orders are playing hardball, just as they did when they forced the government to roll over in 2002. The Conference of Religious of Ireland said it was not aware of plans by religious orders to renegotiate the original settlement and, on the face of it, there is nothing the government can do to change that situation. O’Keeffe has called on the orders to share more of the burden, but even if the legal issue is cut and dried, that still leaves a moral dimension. John Gormley, the Green party leader, has struck the right note, warning the church authorities that they have “a moral responsibility to live up to their Christian values”. It is said you can’t put a price on childhood, but in this case it is unavoidable.
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