We respect all other views also

In the early 1990�s, the appalling stories of child abuse in the Religious Run Residential Homes began to emerge. I, with the rest of Irish Society listened with growing horror to the stories of beatings, starvation, physical and sexual abuse that these unfortunate children had suffered. My interest was personal, as well as humanitarian; I too had been in a home. The only child of a 48 year old mother who suffered from mental illness, and an alcoholic father, the Sisters of Mercy came to my rescue when I was found dying of starvation at 6 weeks old. The home was closed when I was five and I had many more times where the sisters in the community rescued me after being returned to my parents.
I felt so sorry for the sisters I knew, their years of washing, cooking, cleaning and fundraising to make our lives that bit more bearable now tarnished. But, if in their suffering the reflected shame of the few abusers, healing was provided, then so be it.
By 2002, the abuse stories still continued � with increasing vitriol, and the Religious seemed to have become fair game for any allegation. Unsubstantiated stories became financially beneficial as documentaries and books were presented to an unsuspecting public as fact. After seeing some ex pupils come out in defence of their own residential homes, I put my story out also. Many of us made contact with each other, and feeling the carers we knew needed support, decided to form a cohesive group. With the collective experience of 90 of us from 15 different homes, some resident until 18 years old, Let Our Voices Emerge was born. Our sole aim was to support the Religious of integrity through the abuse crisis while the suffering of those genuinely abused was being vindicated. Stories of being well fed and clothed, fighting over comics, toys and sweets, hiding from the bullies in the older groups and minding the children in the younger groups started to emerge.
Locals in the vicinity of the homes contacted us to tell of a time when Irish society suffered hunger and poverty as the norm, yet the �Residential� children looked better cared for than most. Foster parents told of taking children out for holidays and weekends, and. knitting, sewing and Rosary bead classes taught us skills many others didn�t have. Our carers appeared to have done their best to make up for the one thing no-one could give us � the unconditional love of a parent. Within a few weeks, thanks to a very co-operative Irish media, we had successfully put the other side of Institutional care to the public, and whilst not wishing to deny anyone else�s truth, showed that the general conditions of our homes were much better than generally perceived, and also the level and scale of the abuse was much lower than previously portrayed.

When, through talking to each other, we realised there were some ex pupils from the homes, knowingly naming innocent Religious as their abusers in order to claim compensation from the state, we exposed this to the Irish public. Indeed, one claimant himself took the very brave step of openly admitting to the media, he had falsely alleged abuse. Having gotten the Christian Brothers to back us up with a statement from them, uproar from some of the journalists and Victim Support Groups followed. Surely, they claimed we were being paid by the Religious, or at least Religious fanatics. (This amused me personally as my upbringing was mainly Church of Ireland ethos). Could no-one support the Religious Orders out of basic humanity and gratitude?
Having made our point, we intended to leave well enough alone as by the end of January 04, personal finances were running out, and the emotional stress of battle was taking its toll. However over 30 lay people � Teachers, Childcare Workers and foster parents had contacted us claiming false allegations from Residential care, against them. Burnt out houses, poison pen letters, lost jobs and social isolation were their sentences before ever going to court.On the basis of innocent until proven guilty the decision to provide support for them was taken.
At the moment we are going to rely on donations from the public to sustain our efforts and if enabled to keep going we aim :-
To provide support for all people, including the Religious of integrity, who state that they are innocent of allegations of child abuse being made against them.

Florence Horsman Hogan, Mary Walshe Co � founders of L.O.V.E

1998-2001, Health Board statistics for proven false allegations � 4811 proven false out of 33,800 => 14.2%.
These are present day figures and involve children against parents, teachers, hospital personnel, neighbours etc. Genuine cases of child abuse need our already stretched state resources to help them surely.
Far less than already proven false allegations 4000 approximately � is the estimated amount of people claiming against the Religious Orders for historical abuse alleged from 30-40 years ago. Add in the lapse of time, a troubled life (let�s face it we were all affected in some way!), and compensation, and I wonder how much higher the figure would go? Remember to make a false allegation an innocent person is named.
Not only do Victim Support Groups (except the more rational �Alliance Victim Support�) deny there are false allegations of abuse being made, but �4.2 million of public money has been given to these groups. Not one cent to the protection/exposure of and from false allegations.

L.O.V.E intends to redress that balance.
FHH