Sir, - I wish to take issue with Ciaran Coleman on his letter about corporal punishment in schools (May 10th). While I too welcome the decision by Micheal Martin to open the shutters on all State-run industrial schools and institutions, the equation of ordinary national and secondary schools with institutions is wrong.
Children in institutions were to all intent and purpose parentless, in contrast to children at home and in an education system their parents supported or at least had some knowledge of. If we take issue with corporal punishment in schools (and I do - I too make no excuses) we must also take issue with corporal punishment in the home. The often quoted, "If you went home and said you were slapped in school, you got another", comes to mind.
This serves not to lessen the seriousness of the physical abuse of children but to make the distinction (which Mr Coleman does not) between accepted methods of discipline at a time in our past and the sexual abuse of children. Cases of sexual abuse of children by primary and secondary schoolteachers have been brought to light recently, as have those by members of religious communities.
If the Catholic Church and the Christian Brothers are being scapegoated (and I agree to some extent they are) for the "wrongs that society tolerated, hid and accepted" then at least let's not get the "wrongs" confused. - Yours, etc., Kate Redmond,
Enniskerry, Co Wicklow