Piling insult upon injury

Mary Raftery
03/03/2005
As a display of hypocrisy in action on an extraordinary scale, certain events in Kilkenny over the past three decades are in a league of their own.

During the 1970s, the town was the centre of a unique experiment. Led by the local Catholic Church, a progressive scheme was developed to provide State-funded social services to those most in need. It was devised as a possible prototype for the delivery of such services to the entire country, and was at the time universally praised.

In the midst of what became probably the most socially conscious part of the country was an institution called St Joseph's. It was run by the same order of nuns spearheading reform across the county - the Irish Sisters of Charity - and catered in the main for the children of the poor.

The change in attitude towards poverty sweeping the rest of Kilkenny passed St Joseph's by. Its old, industrial-school culture remained largely untouched. Behind the high walls, where its small inmates were incarcerated, we now know that the nuns employed at least three paedophiles to look after a group of about 30 boys.

Several of these children, as young as four, were subjected to over a decade of continuous and savage abuse, both physical and sexual. We know that a number of them told adults of the torture they were suffering. We know that a number of prominent individuals, including the local bishop, Dr Peter Birch, and Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, were made aware of some of the allegations of abuse. We know that for the children concerned little or nothing happened as a result of their complaints.

While there has been a general denial that anyone was told about the sexual abuse, and an insistence that the allegations related only to physical abuse of the children, it is worth recalling the statement given by Sr Stan to the Garda investigation in 1995.

Referring to a period during the mid-1970s, she acknowledged that she "picked up on it" that one of the subsequently convicted paedophiles (Myles Byrne) might have been sexually abusing the boys. She added that "with regard to what happened in St Joseph's you simply did not ask".

One of those who complained to the nun in charge of St Joseph's at the time, Sr Joseph Conception, was Raymond Noctor. Last Tuesday, he was awarded ?370,000 by the High Court in a landmark decision likely to have far-reaching implications for the State.

He was only 13 when he told Sr Conception that another of the subsequently convicted paedophiles (David Murray) was "at the boys". It was an act of extraordinary bravery for the child. Murray was a violent and sadistic abuser. He had a large Alsatian dog, of which the nuns were terrified. He would set the dog on the boys, and had taken Raymond out in the dead of night to show him the patch where he would bury him if the child ever revealed what Murray was doing to him.

Raymond Noctor's wholly deserved award by the High Court this week is the largest so far received by anyone abused within the industrial schools system. It follows a 2003 case where the courts awarded ?75,000 to a man for sexual abuse he suffered in the same institution. The judge described this abuse, a single incident, as being at the lowest end of the scale.

These two cases have now set the range of awards from the courts for institutional child abuse, from ?75,000 to ?370,000 depending on the seriousness of the abuse and its effects on the victim. What this immediately shows up is that child-abuse survivors are being seriously short-changed by the redress scheme established by the Government to make amends to those whom the State betrayed as children.

The average payout from the Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB) is only ?77,917. The maximum it can pay is ?300,000, but just half of one per cent have received over ?200,000. The board is mired in conflict with abuse survivors, many of whom have been deeply traumatised by what they perceive as its punitive and hostile approach towards them.

The board's operation is also highly secretive, protected by legislation which makes it a criminal offence for the recipient of compensation to reveal any details. However, from similar cases already dealt with, it is possible to estimate that had Raymond Noctor gone to the RIRB rather than to court, he would have received only about a third of the amount awarded to him this week by the High Court.

The alarmingly low levels of RIRB awards should be seen in the wider context of the now notorious church/state deal on redress. The Public Accounts Committee report on this deal, due for publication shortly, is expected to be highly critical of the Government.

It is an obscene injustice that those abused as children should again be victimised and railroaded by a system desperate to save face (and money), as a result of a bad deal which wantonly exposed the taxpayer and allowed the religious orders directly responsible for the abuse to evade their fair share of responsibility.

? The Irish Times