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School abuse commission has power to compel answers from religious orders. It should use it

It’s time State got to grips with redress issue where religious congregations are concerned

Some religious congregations have met their financial commitments to redress schemes, but most have not. Photograph: iStock
Patsy McGarry's picture
Patsy McGarry
Wed Sept 04 2024 - 06:00

In October 2025 it will be 20 years since the publication of the first statutory report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse by church authorities in Ireland. That report dealt with harrowing revelations on the abuse of children by priests in Ferns diocese, mainly in Wexford, and its cover-up over decades by bishops and senior clergy there.

Then, in May 2009 we had the 2,600-page Ryan report about the abuse of children and its cover-up in orphanages, reformatories and industrial schools run by 18 religious congregations. It found that the sexual abuse of boys was endemic in such institutions. And most relevant congregations have yet to meet their promised contributions to redress for survivors of those institutions.

In November 2009, the Murphy report on the cover-up by archbishops of Dublin and the archdiocese’s senior clergy of the sexual abuse of children by priests in Ireland’s largest Catholic diocese was published. July 2011 saw publication of the Cloyne report into the cover-up there by bishops and senior clergy of the clerical abuse of children in that mainly east-Cork diocese.

February 2013 saw publication of a report by the interdepartmental inquiry into the abuse of women in Magdalene laundries run by four religious congregations. (All of whom refused to contribute to redress for surviving women of those institutions.)

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January 2021 saw publication of the 3,000-page report into the mother and baby homes, with its damning findings on the treatment of women and children in those institutions. There too redress has been a problem with the Government unable to secure agreement to date with the congregations who ran those homes on what they will contribute.

You would have thought that after all of that, after almost 20 years of exposure to those all-too-similar findings by statutory reports and inquiries, that the Irish public would have become inured to stories of innocent children being sexually abused in church-run institutions and its cover-up by authorities trusted with the protection of those children. Not so.

How could it? The revelation in senior counsel Mary O’Toole’s scoping inquiry report that it was told about 2,395 allegations of child sexual abuse involving 884 alleged abusers in 308 schools across 22 counties and involving 42 religious congregations is simply stunning, in the most appalling sense.

It recommended a Commission of Investigation be set up to inquire into all of this, taking into account the desire of survivors for accountability and redress. A clearly moved Minister for Education Norma Foley indicated on Tuesday that the report from such a commission could take up to five years, following its being set up. She suggested interim reports might go some way to satisfying survivors’ desire for accountability in the short term.

Given the scale of what is involved, that seems ambitious, not least as the scoping inquiry report has made it clear that the new commission’s work should not be confined to schools run by religious congregations.

There is a quicker way towards such accountability. Taking into account the age of most survivors in particular, it seems fair that the commission should begin its work by summoning representatives of the relevant religious congregations/school authorities to give evidence in public as to how what happened did happen to children under their care. Under the relevant 2004 Act, the commission has the powers to do so, but that has never been exercised.

The Ryan commission, set up under different legislation, did so. Seeing those responsible for running such institutions explain, or not, how so many children on their watch were sexually abused and neglected was a source of some satisfaction for survivors of those residential institutions for children at that commission’s public hearings in 2005-2006.

And it really is time this State got to grips with the redress issue where religious congregations are concerned. It is not at all satisfactory that this is, seemingly, left to the goodwill or otherwise of the relevant religious congregations who have developed an immunity, even, to moral arguments that they should contribute what they agreed to, following publication of the Ryan report in 2009. Yes, some have met commitments made then, but most have not.