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	Row Back on Child Abuse? The Southern Star [Ireland] June 2, 2006 http://www.unison.ie/southern_star/stories.php3?ca=44&si=1626886&issue_id=14164 Public anger at the way in which, what was described in November as the 'Herculean' task of exorcising child sexual abuse was proceeding, was exacerbated last week when, eight years after the Christian Brothers issued an apology to victims of abuse at their institutions, one of its leaders, Brother David Gibson, chose to cast serious aspersions on the motivations of those making allegations against his order. This happened at a meeting of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse when Brother Gibson maintained his order would have a 'strong suspicion of a very big contamination of evidence' arising from the fact that, following the Taoiseach's apology in May, 1999, the number of complaints relating to St. Joseph's industrial school, Letterfrack, Co. Galway increased from 12 to 449. Brother Gibson, however, produced no evidence to the commission to substantiate this remarkable accusation and given that what evidence exists appears to contradict his testimony. The Redress Board, which deals with compensation for the victims, has a mechanism allowing a religious order to contest allegations against its members but, so far, out of the total of 5,114 claims referred to it, only one such claim did not warrant prosecution, so, as the 'One in Four' co-ordinator asked, where is Brother Gibson's evidence? Furthermore, another Christian Brother, one Michael Reynolds, who also testified to the commission last week, admitted that in only two cases had the Brothers mounted any challenge concerning allegations made against them. So far, the Redress Board has paid compensation to over 5,000, a large proportion being victims of the Christian Brothers, but more significant is that the total of applications from abused people amounts to around 14,600 and the total cost of all this perversion, the Dail Public Accounts Committee was told, will come to about ˆ1.35 billion. Yet, the State, in its 'deal' with CORI (or the Conference of Religious in Ireland), settled for a mere ˆ128 million from the religious orders, which figure will eventually end up at only ˆ77.7 million or about 5 per cent of the total bill. While the anger at Brother Gibson's claims last week came mainly from the abuse groups, why should Irish taxpayers, footing 95 per cent of the overall cost, not also be angry at the way they were sold out by lily-livered government negotiators, led at the time by Dr. Michael Woods and without proper authority or accountability? This is just another example of shameful squandering of State resources and without any concern for those who must 'pay the piper'. If abuse in such institutions was, arguably, the most prevalent among these transgressions, the reality is that many other religious-run institutions, boarding schools in particular, were never investigated and some orders, as far as we know, got away completely scot-free. There was also a level of unacceptable violence in primary schools for which perpetrators were never brought to justice, but again, as in the case of suspect priests being transferred from place to place, the level of cover-up suggests a serious dereliction of responsibility by relevant religious authorities. There have been many inquiry reports, most recently in Ferns Diocese, which heightened public concern so that, overall, it is galling for victims, in particular, and the public and taxpayers in general, to have, at this late stage, excuses coming from religious orders who themselves, have escaped 95 per cent of the cost of compensating their unfortunate victims. Are they taking back their apologies?
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