Raymond Noctor was awarded €370,000 in damages by the High Court, as a result of having been physically and sexually abused in an industrial school. There is now speculation that other residents of industrial schools who suffered abuse will bypass the mechanism set up by the State - the Residential Institutions Redress Board - and go directly to the High Court.
Reading the judgment delivered in the case, it is quite amazing that Raymond Noctor did not receive much, much more. Nothing could compensate him for the savage abuse he suffered from a brutal, depraved individual, who threatened to kill him and bury him in the vegetable garden if he told anyone about it. Nothing will compensate him for the damage, and disruption to the rest of his life, including spells in hospital and alcohol abuse.
A psychiatrist who gave evidence in the case said that in 23 years dealing with sexual abuse he had only come across three cases which were in the "same category of severity of abuse as the plaintiff's". Other medical witnesses declared the case to be the worst they had ever encountered.
Given that the majority of cases concern either physical abuse, or far less severe sexual abuse, perhaps a flood of cases to the High Court will not happen after all. Given that the High Court only awarded €370,000 to Raymond Noctor, and 12 awards from the redress board have been between €200,000 and €300,000, it might be premature to abandon the redress board route.
If people do go to the High Court, and receive just awards, what of it? Given that most of the claimants suffered the loss of normal family life, which was then compounded by various forms of abuse, then it is a good thing if financial compensation helps in some small way.
All abuse cases are tragic; but somehow the tragedy in this case is heightened by the fact that the abuse took place partly as a consequence of the fact that the Irish Sisters of Charity were progressive and enlightened. Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, a member of that order, along with the late Bishop Birch, was to the forefront of providing social services in Kilkenny.
Having completed a training course for social workers which Sr Stan helped to set up, David Murray, the abuser in this case, was employed by St Joseph's Industrial School. Employing a male professional was truly revolutionary at the time. Screening of care workers did not exist.
As a lay man, David Murray was supposed to be a father figure living with the boys in a group home setting. Murray abused in every way the trust placed in him. When he was eventually fired due to allegations made by the boys about physical abuse, he was replaced by another qualified lay man, Myles Brady, who proceeded also to abuse the boys in his care. When an allegation concerning abuse by Brady was made to Sr Conception, who had responsibility for St Joseph's Industrial School, she confronted him immediately, and made him resign.
Although the damages awarded have been written about at length, other aspects of the case have been ignored. For example, the judge accepted that although attempts were made to inform Sr Conception, she did not realise the complaints concerned sexual abuse.
Raymond Noctor claims that two meetings took place in the presence of two garda sergeants who worked in a voluntary capacity in St Joseph's. He also claims that Bishop Birch was present at one of these meetings. Mr Noctor says he made explicit complaints of sexual abuse at those times. The judge, while finding him accurate and truthful in other respects, did not accept that these meetings took place.
The judge believed that Sr Conception would have acted as quickly as she did over Myles Brady, had she understood what various people had tried to say to her.
Reading the judgment, one can see exactly how naming bodily parts and describing sexual abuse to a nun would have entailed, in the words of the judge, "serious embarrassment" for the young men who attempted it. When Mr Noctor and others told her that Murray had been "at him", this less than explicit attempt to communicate led to "a failure on the part of Sr Conception to understand the true nature of the complaint being made".
Yet, in spite of the fact that it is clear the judge accepts that Sr Conception did not know, some commentators persist in claiming that she did, and that Sr Stan also had knowledge of sexual abuse. These claims about Sr Stan centre on a statement given to the Garda in 1995. Sr Stan has repeatedly explained that in her statement she was speaking about sexual abuse with the wisdom of hindsight, but that she suspected nothing at the time.
Why is this damaging claim, that she knew but did nothing, constantly rehashed? Why is she, who has done so much since the 1970s to secure human dignity and care for the marginalised in our society, being targeted in this way? Why is an elderly nun such as Sr Conception constantly being accused of knowing about sexual abuse, but doing nothing, when the evidence points in the other direction?
Sr Conception is an extraordinary woman. At over 80 years of age, she is still available almost on a daily basis in Slievenamon House, near the Mater hospital, where she provides a service to people who passed through St Joseph's.
In November 1999 an entire page in the Kilkenny People newspaper was devoted to letters written in her praise by former residents. A typical example said: "Sr Conception looked after me through years of loneliness and sadness. I love her with all my heart."
Perhaps such a picture, of an elderly nun still dedicated to the people she served, does not fit the neat black and white picture of evil religious and saintly lay people. In the case of St Joseph's, it was lay people who terrorised and traumatised the children. A recent study showed that 97 per cent of abuse in Ireland was carried out, not by priests and religious, but by lay people. Perhaps it is still easier to attempt to demonise all religious, rather than come to terms with that reality.