This time last year I wrote a column which I was certain would cause a stir. It concerned the largely unpublicised conviction of a man for the serial rape of six little girls - his two daughters and four nieces. Judge Paul Carney effectively, and rightly, sentenced him to imprisonment for the rest of his days, writes Kevin Myers.
I wrote then: "The court heard that the man's wife first complained about his offending with his daughters in 1987. However, though a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, gardaí were directed that he was not to be charged. Health board social workers took charge of the case and he was banned from living within the home for a time but was eventually allowed back. Garda Felim Moran told the court that the evidence from the victims, confirmed by the defendant, showed that his offending restarted. He admitted to taking the girls in turns to abuse them in the house and in other places."
In all, the abuse and rape of little girls had gone on for well over a decade, starting when the accused was about 32, and his victims were mere infants. Moreover, from the time of the initial complaint through his many years as a rapist, at least four separate State agencies had some legal or organisational authority over this creature. The first was the Army. The second was An Garda Síochána. The third was the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The fourth was the regional health board. And on their combined watch, this evil creature presided over a regime of terror over any girl-kin within raping distance.
His wife had initially reported his sexual interference with his very young daughters in 1987. This was investigated, and a file prepared, but the office of the DPP directed that no charge be brought.
Why? The matter was then handed over to health board social workers. But by what legal power, and whose, did this case of serial rape bypass both the gardaí and the courts and end up with social workers? The rapist was then "banned" from the family home. Banned? By whom or what? If by a court-order, then the court - a fifth State agency - was complicit in this horror. But notwithstanding, he was later allowed back in the home. But why, by whom, and on what legal authority? Naturally, he again turned that household into a rape-camp for girls: thus their childhood, courtesy of this Republic.
Confident that there would be a thorough inquiry to provide some answers, a year ago I posed some questions: "Jesus Christ. What is going on here? Why was a man facing a charge of child-rape allowed to leave the Army with an honourable discharge? When did the Army first discover the allegations? If it knew of them back in 1987, why was he allowed to remain as a serving soldier? Why did the DPP 'direct' that gardaí take no action, meaning there was no trial? Who in authority decided that incestuous rape was merely a matter for social workers? Who were these social workers, to whom did they answer, and what power did they have over this animal's life? Who chose to bar him from his family home, and by what legal authority? And most of all, who then in lawful authority chose to readmit him to that home, once again to rape and rape and rape?" I sat back and waited for the response. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a word.
The State had, at the very least, passively colluded in the destruction of half a dozen childhoods, yet from the Rape Crisis Centre, from the sisterhood, and from all the usual suspects in the Dáil and the Seanad who apparently seize every opportunity to pounce on this column, utter silence; and not one single letter to this newspaper.
Why is this? Is it because such people would do almost anything not to be seen agreeing with anything written here? God knows, if this column says anything critical of the feminist agenda, the Letters page is an acidulous mass of spitting contumely. But this time, however, I could not possibly be faulted by the sisters, for here I was, writing about the State's passive complicity in multiple child-rapes.
So - what is more important for the bien-pensants of Ireland? For them to demand compassion for the victims, vengeance upon the wrong-doers and indignation when the State fails in its duties? Or for them to stay silent because they generally disapprove of the messenger who has drawn their attention to a very great crime indeed? If that is so, then their real concern isn't compassion for victims; it is their own self-image. Their own egos are actually more important to these self-appointed guardians of public morality than either the fate of these little girls or the abysmal failure of those in authority to protect them.
Yet these are the very people who proclaim a virtual monopoly in their sympathy for the downtrodden and the oppressed - and there is nobody on earth who is more oppressed than a little girl who spends her childhood being raped by her father or uncle.
So how genuine is the compassion of our bien-pensant classes? How authentic their concern for victims? How real their regard for little girls? In the face of pure evil, they apparently chose to do and say nothing because of the identity of the journalist who had publicly drawn their attention to it. And that, really, tells us all we need to know about them.