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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
5 6 April 2017
J
OE DUFFY’S 'Liveline' knows a good story
when it sees one and came across a
doozy in the Irish Times on
20 March. Kitty Holland had interviewed Mary
Higgins, CEO of Caranua (meaning ‘good friend’),
the state organisation set up to provide continu-
ing support for victims of institutional abuse.
Higgins said that some abused people she was
employed to assist would never be satisfied,
while some others had engaged in fraud.
That was 'Liveline' sorted. Higgins’ uncomfort-
able presence on the RTÉ radio programme
provided a target for survivors. 'Liveline' phones
hopped for days afterwards.
The encounter also provided a promotional
tagline, broadcast on other RTÉ programmes for
a week. Repeatedly, Duffy was heard insisting
that Higgins should state: “The amount of money
we have been given by the religious orders is not
enough”.
Caranua has since 2014 administered a Resi
-
dential Institutions Statutory Fund, designed to
provide ongoing non-cash support to abuse vic
-
tims. It is limited to €110m, the sum promised by
18 Roman Catholic religious congregations in a
2002 deal, in return for indemnity against
prosecution.
Since 2002 the separate Residential Institu-
tions Redress Board has spent €1.5bn
compensating over 16,000 former residents of
Industrial Schools, Children's Homes and other
institutions. For effect, the state has set an unre-
alisable goal of retrieving 50% of the cost from
the 18.
All of the confusion surrounding responsibility
for abuse and attempts to assuage society’s guilt,
by assigning blame, is reflected in this story.
Caranua realised last year that the rate at
which it was spending would erode the fund
before all were helped. A €15,000 per applicant
limit was applied.
The cap and the perceived disdain with which
they were viewed by the head of an organisation
supposed to assist them, revived some victim’s
feelings of rejection. Caranua was no longer a
friend, but became a new oppressor of those
who had been abused. The spending cap turned
the organisation into an abuse means-tester.
Joe Duffy repeatedly asked Higgins to demand
that the Roman Catholic Church pay more. Call-
ers suggested approaching the Vatican. This
refrain came from government too. The Catholic
Church is to blame so the church should pay for
its sins. The government narrative presents the
Catholic Church and its 18 congregations as
responsible for 100% of the abuse. The state
paying half is presented as a more than reason-
able compromise.
Roman Catholic clergy perpetrated horren-
dous abuse. The institutional church covered it
up and protected abusers. That is a fact whose
political and social consequences should have
monetary ones too: so says the public mood.
There are a couple of complications.
The children abused in residential institutions
were usually put there and paid for by the state.
The state had a duty of care. Inadequate inspec
-
tion and regulation, and substandard payments
per head of institutional population ensured that
it failed in its duty. It was privatised social con-
trol of the poor and marginalised on the cheap,
wrapped up in a harsh regime of sanction that
was supposedly moral, though mostly it was
immoral.
Redress was and is a public liability.
The call for a religious contribution to its cost
incorporated an element of public relations,
that could focus public anger on the Roman
Catholic Church, an institution with which most
Irish people had an intense emotional relation-
ship. After all, the relationship has moved
pretty rapidly since the late Bishop Eamon
Casey was found to have shared his bed with
Annie Murphy, especially when other clergy
were found to have entirely unacceptable
sexual tastes. An organisation that thrived on
the basis that it was morally superior was on a
descent to ridicule and revulsion.
But that is not the only complication.
On 'Liveline' on 22 March, three days into the
story, Joe Duffy devoted 18 uninterrupted min
-
utes to Eileen Macken, who is nearly 80. Eileen
stated that her experience of Caranua, which
paid for new windows and doors, was positive.
Eileen was upset at hearing others’ negative
experiences. Being a good and thoughtful
person, she worried whether she might have
been unconsciously selfish in accepting the help
Caranua literature encouraged her to apply for.
Eileen related how she had been to the hospi
-
tal that morning and that she required painful
injections to her hands. In his folksy way Joe
Duffy made a reference to Padre Pio, which
Redress is a public liability, not primarily a Church
liability - since the state had a duty of care, but
provided inadequate inspection and regulation,
and substandard payments per head
MEDIA
Catholic
congregations are
paying for Protestant
abuse, though media
are uninterested
by Niall Meehan
Protestant abuse immunity
from redress payments (and reportage)
Duffy was
heard insisting
that Caranua
should state:
“The amount of
money we have
been given by
the [Catholic]
religious orders
is not enough”.
He did not ask
why Protestant
homes have not
contributed.
April 2017 5 7
passed Eileen by.
Eileen is a member of the Church of Ireland,
where Padre Pio’s stigmata are not a regular topic
of conversation. Eileen was brought up in two
Protestant residential institutions. In 1937 she
came into this world in a doctor’s surgery on Dub-
lin’s fashionable Leeson Street. From there she
was consigned on her own to the Protestant
evangelical Bethany Home. From five months
until the age of 17, Eileen resided in the Church of
Ireland Orphan House on the North Circular Road,
later Kirwan House.
Eileen suffered severe physical and emotional
abuse in primary school, where a teacher pun-
ished her relentlessly because she was born out
of wedlock. Eileen, who wanted to be a nurse,
was destined for life as a servant in homes of
richer members of the Church of Ireland commu-
nity. She eventually escaped that fate. Eileen
outlined her good fortune in making a loving
family with husband George, but also her inabil-
ity to find out where she came from. She recently
suffered a severe setback in that quest, which
she explained.
Eileen’s orphanage was listed officially with
the Residential Institutions Redress Board in
2002 as a place where abuse occurred. Eileen
told the Board her story and reportedly received
€70,000 by way of compensation. Then along
came Caranua in 2013, promising more help from
its €110m fund.
But, here is the rub: why are 18 Roman Catho
-
lic congregations expected to fund victims of
Protestant-ethos institutions? How are they
responsible for abuse that occurred in Protes-
tant institutions?
Why are the Church of Ireland and other Prot
-
estant congregations paying nothing, is the
question no one is asking.
There is a song that goes ‘That’s the way God
planned it’. In this case it is the way the govern
-
ment planned it and the way the media are
reporting it. The skewed indignation of 'Liveline'
callers was fed too by an earlier, 9 March Comp-
troller and Auditor General report on the cost of
redress. The C&AG stated how much or, rather,
little was paid by the 18 Roman Catholic institu-
tions. He never mentioned Protestant-ethos
institutions that contributed nothing to the
€1.5bn bill. Abuse allegedly occurred in - Church
of Ireland-ethos - Smyly’s homes in the Dun
Laoghaire/Monkstown area of south County
Dublin. Smyly’s offered the state a derisory
£100,000 in 2005, in return for indemnity from
prosecution. The sum was rejected. Smyly’s resi-
dents were still entitled to redress. It was a state
responsibility.
The C&AG ignored this.
A lemming-like media reported the C&AG
report uncritically. As Redress Board testimony
and payments were confidential, newspapers
lazily delved into the (separate) 2009 report of
the Ryan Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse
in residential institutions, for re-hashed horror
stories of crimes against children.
Since Ryan reported only on Roman Catholic
abuse, no Protestant stories made their way into
newspaper columns. Few if any Protestants
spoke to the Ryan Commission. Two former resi-
dents of Protestant institutions told me they
thought it was “for Catholics” or “a Catholic
thing”. They followed the dominant media and
official narrative.
All the stories were of Catholic abuse.
I informed the Irish Times of the problem with
the C&AG report on 9 March. For two days they
ignored it. That may not be a surprise to readers
of my critique of Times’ coverage of St Patrick’s
Cathedral paedophile Patrick O’Brien (Village,
Feb 2017).
However on 11 March, the paper published a
story by Hugh Linehan with a subhead about
how the C&AG’s report had not mentioned Prot-
estant institutions. That seemed a good start but
the detail that followed was off-target.
The newspaper concentrated on the Protes-
tant evangelical Bethany Mother and Baby
Home. It was never part of the redress process.
There was no cost of Bethany Home redress
because Bethany residents were excluded from
applying for it in the first place, alongside all
Mother and Baby homes (both Catholic and
Protestant).
Officially, the state disclaims all liability for
what happened there. The government is
attempting to limit its liability, by granting
redress compensation to older residents of
orphanages and industrial schools, and denying
it to younger residents of mother & baby homes.
Some months ago, the currently sitting Mother
and Baby Home Commission of Inquiry sent an
interim report to children’s minister Catherine
Zappone. It is rumoured to recommend a redress
scheme for such homes. For that reason the
report has not yet been published.
Bethany Home is therefore a whole other, if
related, story.
Linehan’s story failed to mention any relevant
Protestant-ethos institution, within the existing
2002 redress scheme. If the Times had men-
tioned Smyly’s, for example, it would have
exposed a government exercise in deflecting
public attention from its own responsibility. It
would also have given us a better understanding
of the nature of abuse, associated with power
and patriarchy, a broader problem than the
related one of patriarchal religion. The Protes-
tant abuse narrative would have made its,
characteristically rare, appearance.
Had Hugh Linehan asked me, I could have set
him straight on an issue I had brought to the
paper’s attention. Perhaps there is a problem
talking to critics.
The newspaper published a letter from me
making some of these points on 23 March. It
would be better if those points appeared in the
news and features columns.
I also contacted Joe Duffy’s 'Liveline' pro-
gramme, before and after Eileen Macken’s
interview. It paid no attention and doggedly
pursued the government-sanctioned Roman-
Catholic-Church-Must-Pay refrain.
If they must then, logically, so must others.
It is about time the story was adequately
reported.
Niall Meehan is head of the Griffith College
Journalism and Media Faculty.
The C&AG
reported on how
much Catholic
congregations paid,
but said nothing
about Protestant
non-payment
SMYLY'S RESIDENTIAL CHILDREN'S HOMES
The Ragged Boys' Home,
The Coombe Ragged Day School and Boys'
Home,
The Bird's Nest,
The Elliot home for Waifs and Strays,
Smyly's Home in Dun Laoghaire: its former residents
were given redress compensation, but Smyly's paid
nothing towards the cost.
