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	Outsiders Often Needed to Break Our Cosy Consensus The Irish Times December 22, 2009 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1222/1224261109540.html THE LAST RTE Radio One This Week programme of the decade on Sunday encapsulated much about Irish public life. Three of its four stories dealt with the consequences of secrecy, writes ELAINE BYRNE Tommie Gorman’s searching interview with Gerry Adams unveiled allegations of sexual abuse made by his niece Aine Tyrell against her father, Liam Adams (Gerry’s brother), dating back to 1987. Gerry Adams also revealed that his late father subjected members of his family to sexual, emotional and physical abuse. In what was uncomfortable listening, Adams referred to the “culture of concealment” which prevented the matter being raised before now. The costs of this culture were one also laid bare by the Murphy report into the Dublin archdiocese where “avoidance of scandal, the preservation of the reputations of individuals and of the church, took precedence over the safety and welfare of children”. The second story focused on recent events in Listowel. The 24-year-old woman at the centre of the sexual assault case said she has been made to feel that she had done something wrong in bringing the case to court. “All I did was tell the truth and I’m not going to feel guilty about that,” she told the Marian Finucane RTE radio show on Sunday. The third story heard from the former group internal auditor of AIB and whistleblower, Eugene McErlean, who backed the calls by the Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan, for protection for bankers who reveal wrongdoing. In a radio interview with Pat Kenny last March, McErlean maintained that the “policy of cover-up, of concealment and hiding behind confidentiality needs to end now . . . it’s a change of attitude more than an approach to rules”. When each of these three cases were initially brought to public attention, the implicit message was one where silence judged the victim and accordingly gifted absolute impunity to those responsible for the various types of abuse perpetrated. Constructive meaningful challenge to entrenched religious, political or economic orthodoxy was traditionally responded to by aggressive defensiveness. It is no coincidence that many of the key whistleblowers who have exposed wrongdoing across all aspects of Irish public life lived outside the state for a period of time. Diarmaid Ferriter in Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 acutely observed that “it often took outsiders to unfold the truth”. Andrew Madden, the first person in Ireland to go public about his abuse by a priest, came forward in 1995, the year he returned home from the UK where he had been living since 1984. Colm O’Gorman returned from the UK to live in Ireland in 2003 to found One in Four which was instrumental in the establishment of the Ferns inquiry, the first State investigation into clerical sexual abuse in Ireland. Madden and O’Gorman, along with fellow Dublin abuse victim Marie Collins, were involved in helping to draw up the terms of reference for a new type of inquiry which led to the Commission of Investigation Act, 2004. It was under that Act that the investigation into the Dublin archdiocese was established in 2006. In our decade of inquiry into the dysfunctional nature of power across every aspect of Irish public life, outsiders, however defined, have been prominent in highlighting wrongdoing. Eugene McErlean from Northern Ireland blew the whistle on fraudulent practices within the financial sector. A junior English midwife exposed the irregular obstetric practices of Dr Michael Neary which led to the Lourdes hospital inquiry. Patrick Honohan, the first governor to be appointed from outside the senior civil servant ranks in the Central Bank’s 66-year history, has repeatedly called for a banking inquiry in order to “understand the deeper, underlying causes of this crisis so that wider lessons can be learnt for the future”. Honohan has asked why nobody in the 200-year-old banks shouted stop. The Taoiseach’s only response was that he would “carefully consider” such calls for an inquiry. The ability to launch an outright challenge to the cosy consensus within our financial system is one which thoroughly – not “carefully” – embraces uncovering the causes of these failures. Why would the former minister for finance not welcome a comprehensive inquiry into the decision-making process that facilitated a financially and morally bankrupt banking system? In that typical suffocating language of the national interest, Cowen maintains that the priority must be to maintain “banking stability and ensuring that we are able to deal with the restructuring of the banking sector”. The two roads that diverge in Robert Frost’s wood choose Irish conservatism, wrapped up in the green jersey, which always seeks to look forward and preserve the status quo. Our island mentality is reinforced by intellectual isolation determined to maintain a social order which rejects the uncomfortable truths about ourselves. We have never any obligation to learn from the past because the mindset of the past remains that of the present. Nothing needs to change because it is no one’s fault. “Clarity of analysis is gaining weight . . . Openness, the free unencumbered sharing of the truth, is fundamentally witness,” Theo Dorgan wrote on these pages last week. Truth and power are now being redefined at every level of our society. Why are the innocent made feel guilty for telling the truth?
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