The State is still failing us

The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse – also known as the Ryan Report – is flawed and "will bring no closure for the victims".

This is the damning assessment of the renowned polemic writer Bruce Arnold, who spent over six years investigating the child abuse scandal. During this period in his Irish independent column, Arnold broke many of the key stories surrounding what is undoubtedly one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the State's existence.
Arnold's tireless research has resulted in a new book, which is an authoritative account of the abuse conducted by priests and nuns in the industrial schools. Entitled The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed Its Innocent Children, the book's title draws comparison with the notorious Russian Gulag regime, which was a network of prison camps for children that masqueraded as schools.
"In the Russian Gulag – so well described by Solzhenitsyn – life itself was cheap and millions died at the hands of the Soviet Union's monstrous leader, Joseph Stalin," Arnold explains. "One of the greatest ironies of the system was that a small but significant number of children were incarcerated, for their whole childhoods, for truancy. And then they were put to work, on miserable rations and in cold, unhygienic circumstances, working for the orders and not being educated. In Ireland, while few actually died, the indifference was the same. Unlike Russia, in Ireland, the children were worth money so long as they were kept alive."
He makes the point that comparisons with the treatment of prisoners in concentration camps is not entirely off the mark.
“In what was done to the children, there was a parallel with the Nazi concentration Camp system," he insists. "At the heart of this was the rule that anything could be done to those in the camps, more or less at the whim of the Commandant. But one bad parallel is probably enough."

CONSPIRACY BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE
Arnold was inspired to write The Irish Gulag for two "very personal reasons". The first came from his own childhood experiences of growing up in a "dysfunctional family" in England.
"My parents were not married as my father couldn't get a divorce from his first wife. My mother had five children, two girls and three boys, with me in the middle. My father drank; my mother had a bad heart and died at the age of 38. That would have qualified all of us, in Ireland, for incarceration in one or other of the industrial schools.
"In fact it led to my two brothers and myself going into what was variously described as 'a home for boys' and 'Kingham Hill Orphanage for Boys'. That was in the autumn of 1943. As late as 1948, in the Ordinance survey maps of the area of the Cotswolds, the school was still described as 'Kingham Hill Orphan Homes'. It became a school but always reserving special attention for children from broken homes. It was a wonderful school. I loved my time there. We were treated kindly, educated well and given our self-respect and dignity. But I was fortunate. It could have been far different scenario if I had been reared in Ireland…"
Arnold also became interested in the scandal after hearing first-hand some horror stories of abuse in the industrial schools. The experience prompted his wife Mavis Arnold to co-write, with Heather Laskey, a ground-breaking book, Children of the Poor Clares, on the subject back in 1985, long before any of the other investigative works.
"My wife and I had a pregnant girl to help us with our children when they were young," he recalls. "It was her third pregnancy. All had resulted from unhappy, transient and abusive relationships. After a time she told us of her background as a girl in the care – what a ridiculous word for it! – of the Poor Clares in St Joseph's in Cavan town. Another friend, Heather Laskey, also had a similar helper from the same 'orphanage'.
"Those girls were savaged by the nuns. There is no other word for it. In addition, through their stupidity and religious fervour the same nuns caused the deaths of 35 children in the convent fire there in 1943. This was covered up by the State during an inquiry, which absolved the nuns. When the abuse saga erupted with the Goldenbridge revelations and then with Mary Raftery's stunning States of Fear programmes, I was ready for all that was coming."
Indeed, he was ready. In 2003, Arnold was the journalist who exposed the controversial 'Secret Deal' negotiated by the then Minister for Education Michael Woods with the Catholic Church in the summer of 2002. The key to the deal was the State taking a meagre €127m in exchange for immunity for the church.
"Undoubtedly there was an conspiracy between Church and State, and the so-called 'Secret Deal' was at the heart of this," explains Arnold. "How could a deal of such consequence be put through, signed and sealed, by an outgoing Minister, without benefit of Cabinet approval and vetting by the Attorney General? And why was it done? Why the secrecy? Why the haste? My probing drew the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General, John Purcell, to the responsibilities of the State in taking the lion’s share of responsibility for abuse claims and letting the Church off with ten per cent responsibility.
"I also published articles, which were addressed to the new Archbishop of Dublin, that helped to persuade Diarmuid Martin to release the highly controversial Henry Moore Report on Artane. This was published in the Irish Independent against the wishes of the Sean Ryan Commission. They sought to dissuade Martin and suppress publication of the Report. The Report was highly critical of the Christian Brothers and their administration of the largest Industrial School at Artane."

THE COMPENSATION DEAL IS PHONEY
Arnold is also highly critical of the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's handling of the scandal.
"I exposed serious misinformation by Bertie Ahern, about the origins and motives for his so-called 'apology' in 1999. I showed – with the support of confidential Cabinet papers – that it was primarily concerned with protecting the State against legal action by the abused. Ahern also lied about consultations with organisations for the abused, at a time when none of these organisations had been formed," says Arnold.
Bruce stuck with the story through its various twists and turns.
"I analysed the workings of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse from its earliest operations, criticising its limited terms of reference," he recalls. "I condemned the fact that it operated under the Department of Education, the main culprit in allowing the abuse to continue over a period of six decades."
Nor is he done with controversy on the subject yet. He is angrily dismissive of the way in which the entire process has been handled by the State,
"I need hardly say that my findings on the completed Commission Report is that it is a white-wash," he says, "incomplete in crucial areas and lacking the forensic approach of other State tribunals. What Bertie Ahern and his Ministers did – and it has been the object of constant criticism and questioning by me – is nothing short of a cover-up and the Ryan Report is part of that. It is hugely expansive about the terrible things that happened in the past. It is mealy-mouthed and restrictive about the behaviour of the State over the past ten years: about how the State stopped Mary Lefoy in her tracks; about how the Department of Education failed to give the full story, 'lost' documents, found them again, covered up essential material and in any case should not have been running a Commission of Inquiry when they themselves were being inquired into."
Arnold's book challenges the motive, purpose and direction of any supposed State process of reconciliation.
"Far from being for the abuse victims, this was aimed at self-protection by the State," maintains Arnold. "The compensation issue is a completely phoney one. The deal was signed and sealed in 2002. Though I investigated it and the Comptroller and Auditor General investigated it, nothing was done. Noel Dempsey, Education Minister at the time, defended it. He said that it could not be renegotiated. He says the same today. He is not shedding crocodile tears, like the present Minister for Education, Batt O'Keeffe, who has a sentimental belief that the orders will come across with something more.
"On the face of it, the State's compensation system cannot be changed. It operates by law through the Redress Board and everything awarded is given on a points system. There is no reason for the Religious to give more to the State – but we will see on that score. Compensation, or Redress, as it was called in the legislation, is a thorny issue. It was made secret and this in itself was a cover-up. The payments are fractional compared with what the High Court would award for the dreadful levels of abuse involved."
How damaging is all this to the Catholic Church in Ireland?
"I hope irreparably in anything that belongs to the old dispensation. The Church, if true and open and generous and loving, can possibly build for itself a new life and role among the Irish people. I regard myself as a Christian and the Christian faith as taught by Christ is infinitely valuable. Humans always mess it up by sanctimonious hypocrisy, lies, arrogance and greed. All of that has to stop," Arnold says.
Can the Church survive?
"I am not optimistic," Arnold concludes.

The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed Its Innocent Children is published by Gill and Macmillan and is in all good book shops now.