MARY RAFTERY AND SISTER STANISLAUS

Irish Times 22 December 1999 - SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

Sir - In relation to the recent controversy regarding whether or not Sister Stan knew about sexual abuse in Kilkenny in the late 1970s I would like to put the record straight.

I was the childcare worker referred to in the States of Fear programme and in the book Suffer the Little Children, who resigned from St. Joseph's Kilkenny in 1977.

I did not tell Sr Stan at any stage that children were being sexually abused in St. Joseph's because I myself was unaware that sexual abuse was occurring.

It was in 1995/1996 that I got my first inkling that children had been sexually abused in 1977, almost 20 years after it is alleged that I told Sr Stan.

It is my belief today, as it was then, that Sister Stan did everything she could in 1977 regarding the children in St. Joseph's.

Yours etc

EDWARD MURPHY
Westfield
Kilkenny