Over the past thirty years or so, the position in relation to abuse of this kind has improved enormously. The ban on corporal punishment in schools was a crucial first step, removing in one fell swoop the legitimacy of any kind of physical brutalisation of children. The process of change was accelerated by a complete shift in sexual mores: the fear of speaking about anything relating to sex was replaced, gradually, by a new openness. And in that context people who had specifically been sexually abused became empowered enough at least to begin to describe what had been done to them.
The power and prestige of the Catholic Church was also being eroded. With it went the authority of individual clerics, and their ability to effectively immunise themselves from accusation and, ultimately, prosecution.
The climate changed because people fought hard to make it change. It changed because Ireland was gradually leaving its status as a colony behind. It changed because of our closer involvement with Europe, and the greater social freedoms which that precipitated. It changed because of rock n roll and the influence of global popular culture. It changed because the media became more adventurous, more questioning and less compliant and easily got at. It changed because the Catholic Church was exposed as a bigoted, authoritarian institution that is fundamentally hostile to and prejudiced against women. And it changed because it had begun to dawn on people on some people at least that it would not be right or justifiable, in any way, to engage in acts of violence of any kind against children.
It changed because we became better at expressing our feelings, and especially our feelings of love.
It was in this climate that the terrible facts about abuse began to pour forth. It was in this climate that, at last, those who had been guilty of shocking crimes of abuse were brought before the courts and tried.
To a large extent, this great leap forward happened not because of the efforts of the government, the police and the courts but in spite of the efforts of those institutions. The culture of concealment ran deep and the preferred official position was that the less said the better. And this was the case, to an even greater extent, within the Catholic Church. As the indictments rolled out, they d plead ignorance. Sure we didn t know what abuse was, they d lie. And anyway we didn t know it was going on.
The damage that was done to people, especially those subjected to long-term abuse in institutions of care , was enormous. The numbers involved are hugely significant, if not huge. And the government, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice have known about it for years.
Much of the abuse, in fact, took place when individual children were in the care of the State, who placed them in institutions of one kind or another run by religious orders. And yet, has the State, or the government, done anything to set about minimising the harm inflicted on people who were subjected to abuse or alleviating the pain and damage caused?
When the shit really started to hit the fan back in 1996 and 1997, and the Catholic Church was forced to acknowledge the colossal scale of the abuse it had presided over, it set up its own helpline to counsel victims of abuse.
At the time, it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that there were serious questions regarding the appropriateness of this: for example, might the service in some way function as a mechanism for defusing the potential for costly actions for damages being taken against the Catholic Church by victims? And in any event why should victims be asked to, or expected to, go to the institution which, in effect, had presided over the abuse, for counselling?
The Catholic Church launched its service in 1997. It is clear that the State should have, at least as quickly, provided an alternative but it didn t. Indeed three and a half years on, and despite a pledge by the government to commit #4 million to the provision of a counselling service, nothing has been put in place.
Representatives from the Department of Justice have time to jet all over the place examining detention centres for immigrants. Measures to fingerprint asylum seekers are being rushed through with an unseemly haste. And yet it has taken the government more than three and a half years longer than the Catholic Church to put a counselling service for victims of abuse in place. It is not an exaggeration to describe this as an outrage.
The extent of that outrage was underlined last week when a victim phoned the Catholic counselling service Faoiseamh, to be greeted by a foul and abusive message which had been put on the service s answering machine. It is unclear by whom the message was recorded, but the incident was a deeply shocking and upsetting one. It was described as the last straw by Christine Buckley of the Aislinn Centre for the Healing of Institutional Abuse and she is right.
Action by the State has been delayed for so long that you could be forgiven for concluding that there s a deliberate policy involved of leaving the floor to the Catholic Church. The only way to quell that suspicion is to provide an alternative service, and to provide it now. So. How long must we sing this song?