The recent Jimmy Savile revelations have highlighted as you said Conor that child abuse has been taking place with the knowledge of public servants and the Media- and members of society.

The sad thing for me is that people suffered greatly and are still suffering in our society and there are times when we lose sight that child abuse takes place most frequently in the family home.

It could be easy for people to blame the Church/Media/Prision Officers etc but I hope that the Children’s Referendum will give a voice to children in Ireland for the first time.

And note the comments that followed this site’s detailing of the failings at St Patrick’s Institution. Many demonstrated that the ‘Bundoran haircut’ attitude is alive and well when it comes to children and young people we don’t like to think of as part of Irish society.

Does anyone know what’s going on in the secret in camera family courts, I ask? Could be as bad as what the article is highlighting.

But ‘the state’ Conor is the taxpayer, not the political, judicial, religious perpetrators, or their collaborators in the gardai and silent media.

Michael Woods stitched no FF fund for the E1bn compo, all he did was let the church/cult slip the net.

It’s not just St.Patrick’s Institution that’s the problem. Great expose of the State as a substitute parent for children from broken family backgrounds in today’s Sunday Independent:

“Gardai issue verbal cautions to around 10,000 juveniles each year and, for half of these, that is generally the end of it. For the rest, they are taken into what is known as the Garda Youth Diversion Projects, which means they are subjected to a certain amount of scrutiny — if their behaviour worsens, they come before the courts; and the worst are headed for detention, albeit for only brief periods. The number who become part of the Garda Youth Diversion Projects has risen 23 per cent in the last four years and is now up to between 5,000 and 6,000 teenagers a year.

The bulk of these teenagers are from broken family backgrounds and about 4,500 at present are ending up in the care of the HSE, which has to find them temporary accommodation, usually in B&Bs. In such places, gardai say, the promised monitoring does not take place and youths are at risk of drugs and crime.”

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/teenage-hitmen-known-to-gardai-from-childhood-3276741.html

Absolutely nothing has changed in Ireland since the days of the industrial schools. The HSE is a joke.

Hello Andrew. How are you? I’ve taken a look at your blog: interesting.
A lot of information too. But, what I wanted to say to you is that I was reading the posts you put here on-line.
Much of the information is jaw dropping material?! The data you have on the subject, it is very extensive.
Will watch the U-tube video posted above.
But, before I do that, I wanted to ask you something. In your posts here and perhaps others do too, you mention this word state.
And sometimes you use the word government. I’ve got questions of my own about that and I wondered if you could assist in my
obtaining some understanding on these terms. Would you?
I ask because these words (whatever their meaning may be) they also appear in news-reels, in sound-bytes and in the press…
and remarkably sometimes also by individual citizens, who themselves (one could say to a reasonable degree of certainty) belong
to the very cohort of human beings that one would normally-speaking assume to be the very individuals that these words, these
English-language terms, refer to in the public interest and conscious. People like “government spokesperson(s)” (often cited in
the Times and the Independent &c.) and human beings who, as individuals, have the honour to represent the public in public-office
as ministers at the cabinet. They too use these terms “state” and “government”; they do it all of the time?
—
Yet these are the individual human-beings (perhaps also Christians too) who have said their prayers before consummating
their dial business each of the 80-or-so days that they are required to attend the tailor and see the hairdresser before being
on-camera later that day, while at work in your houses of parléiament off Mr Molesworth St., in your capital Dublin there.
-
Why is that? Can you tell me? You seem to have a lot of experience being wound-up by these beings, so I will understand
fully if you’d rather not think about them (the two terms) or them (the human individuals to which one would naturally assume,
the terms refer).
So: who are the state (in terms of individual responsibility) and who are the government (in terms of the actual individuals,
on-camera, referring to someone else, as ‘the government’). What is the state of the state, and is this affected by the Head-
of-State? And, are they referring to him? In a personal way? I’ve seen pictures of him (or Him?, I’m not sure). He reminds me
of Galdalf the Grey. In the film he dies half-way through. Good Luck for you there are no dwarves’ or caves over there in
Ireland, like in that film.
-
And one more thing: why are all those terms capitalised? Is that something from the English-language? Or, because of customs
and traditions? Whose traditions? And, if customary, why so?
Do you know? Be great if someone knew: anyone?
~):(~
PS: is it true, that not all the communes were investigated for sexual violence by the local Roman-catholic reps. &c.
in those places?That they’re still in the dark?
So still: even more would-be dark dioceses yet-to-come?
Is that correct? What could be curbing that process?
I mean : what individuals could curb such a process? Or the starting of one?
With all the fancy-alien Euww…! laws that have “shoved” all this stuff about Universal Declaration of Human Rights
down all yer throats? [I'm taking this stuff from the party-political speeches in the most recent national-sideline division
society-war, the Lisbon-conflict over there. As far as I recall, the nation went-to-war on itself twice over that national-
distraction battle?
So, is Mr state now saying, that children, that they are essentially unhuman; or 'anti-human'{?}, perhaps 'aHuman'{?}
[but 'not' a human!] : is that it?
Is that why … despite the IMF and ECB and EU(26) all begging on their bended knee, while transferring the funds to
Mr state’s account, that ye humans over there start to consider society as all the people, and not such some of those
(like, minus the handicapped, retarded, mentally deranged, poor, unintelligent, old, pensioner & other undesirables
etcetera etcetera?). People like me.
And that you do that yourselves: and not simply 2PassOn it? But instead, to do it yourselves… in place of pointing
somewhere and uttering as a first reaction: they ought to do it? And they in-turn utter: “I have 2PassOn it to so and
so”! Asap.
And after anything and everything gets through about forty 2PassOn’s it eventually ends-up on the desk of either
your 2PassOn German-Shepherd in the city of the seven sins, or it gets 2PassOn to the desk of your German Shepherdess,
the Electress in Brandenburg one, known so (thankfully &) affectionately by some in your press as the Angel’a death?
Either way, that Ireland is a member of anything larger than the 26 County Counts, means that all and anything that
is attempted anywhere by anyone will enter the 2PassOn process. And whenever there is contact with the republic
and anything outside of that place, the Law of 2PassOn applies; meaning that the time between any issue arising,
and the moment upon which it is 2PassOn’ed out of the national borders, and thereby relieving all those associated
with Mr state (‘associated’ by way of their being funded directly to their personal and individual bank-accounts each
month by Mr state and his salary&pension pals) of doing anything what-so-ever.
Is that why nothing gets done there? And whatever is done appears to be some manner of miracle? Or even a mistake?
And either way, those persons who are friends and best pals with mr State, will always, always claim all credit?
Even yours and your unborn children’s credit?
-
Do any of you remember that phrase: ‘we have a systemic failure’? & Who it was that coigne’d it? (Pardon the pun).
Was hé ‘mr state’, when he was speaking to you all in that capacity? Or an associate of mr State, perhaps? Or, upon
mature recollection? Was he mr state when he came with cap-in-hand to the outside world? Was me mr state at all?
Or just another dead-Irishman? Difficult to accept that: death. Denial is usually the first reaction and it can last for years
and years. Decades even. In some cases, a lifetime (there I go again).
-
All things being relative: I know ‘who is’ ms state in this kingdom, and who is being referred to when one directs their
sentiment towards ‘ms state’. But, do Irish know who is it in theirs when they go on and on &-on, &-on about mr state?
Or is it all just rhetoric, blame, semantics & shame?
For the next round, yet to be fought?

@ Noel The State, in my mind, would be the culture that the politicians (Government and elected representatives), the Churches (RC and CofI) swam in or tended. The Churches controlled the Education system and most of the Health system and the Government allowed them to do that and even funded them.

The Education and Health systems included the industrial schools, Magdalene Asylums, the Mother & Baby homes and the Bethany Homes. All of these were Church owned and managed but received grants from the Governemt.

Despite changes of Government in Ireland and, indeed Ireland went from being a British Dominion to a Republic – the State remained the same – the culture never changed.

Part of this culture is that responsibility for high crimes (crimes by Church & Government against women and children) has never fallen on the high and mighty. Individuals lower down have paid prices but those people and organisations who conducted, condoned and covered up the crimes are actually STILL held in high regard.

I couldn’t agree more, Colum.

Figures obtained from the HSE show that 193 children in State care went missing up to the end of July of 2011.

Minister for Children and Youth Affairs (Deputy Frances Fitzgerald): I presume the Deputy’s question relates to separated children seeking asylum who go missing while in the care of the state. In this regard, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has advised me that thirteen separated children seeking asylum were reported missing from care in 2010. Eight of these young people returned to care, while five young adults who are aged between 18 and 21 years are still missing. Three of the young people reported missing were from Nigeria, two each from Somalia, Afghanistan and South Africa and the others were from China, Brazil, Algeria and Albania.

During 2011, 6 young people were reported missing, all of whom are still missing. Three are aged seventeen, one is eighteen and two are nineteen years. Two of these young people were from China, the others were from Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria and Bangladesh.

thanks Andrew. Those figures are appalling.

“In future, being Irish has to mean something else.” Hear, hear!

…we must never make peace with evil. We must never become indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.
- Vasily Grossman.

My grandfather’s brother, William Halpin (d.1951), fought in City Hall in Easter 1916. He spent a year in Frongoch and fought from Eastwall during the War of Independence as a member of the IRA. He opposed the Treaty and longed for a German invasion during WW2 – in his view it would reunite a divided Ireland.

During the War of Independence Willy and his ‘comrades’ spent most of their time terrorising the people of Eastwall. They were well known by locals and their ‘rebel’ activities were sometimes reported to Dublin Castle. To maintain a meaningful level of ‘security’ it was imperative (according to my grandfather) that the residents of Eastwall understand what would happen to informers. With that in mind, anyone (not just informers) suspected of harboring ANY reservations about the IRA’s activities were attacked in full public view and beaten senseless. Children and adults, women and the elderly – no one was spared or exempt if they were ‘suss’.

Throughout the three years stretching from 1919 to 1922 Willy was involved, either directly or indirectly, in hundreds of assaults on Crown Forces. During those assaults literally hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands were injured or bereaved (tens of thousands were frightened). In one such attack, Willy and his men threw home-made bombs at a passing truck carrying troops to an inner-city barracks (Newcomen Bridge, 1922). The bombs missed their target and exploded among the people walking by. Fourteen were injured, with one ten year old child by the name of Hanratty (from Moy Elta road) killed. Willy lived a few doors away from the Hanrattys and attended a mass held in memory of the boy – their only child. All of the congregants knew Willy was responsible for what had happened. Everyone feared him and his men. And every time someone was killed or injured in the neighbourhood as a result of Willy’s activities, he received the blessing – some times tacitly, some times publicly – from the local parish priests (especially the young ones). Again, everyone read the signals easily enough – regardless of what the church might SAY in opposition to terrorism, in practice the church’s representatives, on ground level so to speak, said something else entirely. They said that the lives of ordinary people meant nothing to them. Everyone felt vulnerable in respect of this attitude, and responded to it by beating the living daylights out of their children to get them to understand, precisely, where they stood in the scheme of things, and how craven (or ‘respectful’) they had to be in the presence of their ‘betters’ (the priests and the IRA). The priests took on the violent methods of the IRA, and the IRA took on the dubious moralism of the Roman Catholic Church. In some respects, one was a natural outcrop of the other.

It doesn’t matter if violence was common in the homes of ordinary people in England and America prior to the revolutionary period in Irish history (1913 – 1923). Domestic violence was a sad fact of life for most people prior to recent times. What surprises me is your failure to understand how the existence of such violence made people susceptible to, or reconciled to, the eruption of revolutionary violence in Dublin during the most destructive war the world had seen up until that time. What matters is how that new form of violence was used, and how it was interpreted by the people on the receiving end of it. Context matters, and in the context of what took place during the founding years of this state (and in the decades afterwards), it was clear to all and sundry that the violent ruled, the violent were righteous, and the violated (or the potentially violated) had to know their place. One law existed for the Church and the state (for the priests, our ‘heroes’ and their ideological descendants), and another for the rest of us. If we were to be good, Catholic, patriotic, Irish men and women, it was incumbent on us to accept this. And most of us did. We learned to look away, to look down on ourselves, to look up to the men and women of violence – the people who could beat us with impunity, and – under certain circumstances – murder us without qualm. We learned to defer to these people, but we never really identified with them.

The history of the Republic since 1922 has been about the slow struggle of the people of Ireland to break away from the brutal, authoritarian rule of two physical force traditions – the Irish Catholic Church and revolutionary nationalism (the State, in other words – since it was effectively monopolised by violent men and their admirers). Moral force, or constitutional nationalism, is in the process of displacing physical force, or revolutionary nationalism. Naturally, then, the culture created by one has to be ‘reformed’, or replaced, by the other. Hence our recent commitment to exposing the Church and its cohorts. Every time we expose the truth about institutional violence, every time we take the testimony of the abused into our hearts, we damn the conspiracy that was Collins, Pearse, Dev and McQuaid. We dispose of the ‘Irish’ as they were previously defined, and replace them with a far better breed of men and women. In short, we replace them with ourselves. That’s the value of real sovereignty, and only since we faced down the church and state (as both were previously configured), have we truly become a nation again – perhaps for the first time in our history. We can’t stop that process now, no matter how distressing it might become in the near future. We can’t let the coming decade of commemoration result in a rehabilitation of the forces of violence and their exonerators*. Both were guilty of depraved indifference. We – their vanquishers – are not.

*The ‘clerks’ of men like Dev and Haughey – their sycophants, their praisers, their troop of writers, artists, administrators and cronies.

Some of the children of these soldiers, who were fighting the Nazis, were singled out in one of the institutions for ‘special treatment’ – usually extra punishments. I believe it happened in all the institutions that these poor children were consigned to.

A normal 24 hours in the institutions went like this for the children – written by Justine McCarthy after the Ryan Report was made public – imagine what extra terrors these particular children were subjected to!:

” They terrorised the children. They assaulted children. They manacled them to their beds and flogged them. They starved them. They beat them with pokers and hurleys, scalded them and held their heads under running water. When the children tried to abscond, they locked them up in a small room or in the pig sty for days on end. They raped them. They gang-raped them. And throughout it all, they – and the whole world – thought they were holy men and women.

Children were made to lie in bed at night with their arms piously crossed over their chests. When they slipped out of this position unconsciously in their sleep, they were woken up and beaten. Holy men came into the dormitories at night, sometimes two at a time, and put their private parts in the children’s hands and in their mouths. If they wet their beds, they were made to wrap the soiled sheet around them in the morning and to parade in front of everyone. They watched powerlessly as their siblings were tortured. Sometimes they were forced to participate in the abuse. If they tried to tell anyone what was going on, they were beaten. Dignitaries came to visit. The children dared hope afresh they would get the chance to tell. But the holy men and women brought the politicians and the bishops, even the President of Ireland, to the parlour and kissed their rings and intoned God’s name.

They told the children their parents were dead when they were still alive. They told them they themselves were worthless and unlovable. They made them wear threadbare, filthy clothes. They punished girls whose clothing got stained with menstrual blood. They took children out of class to do menial work. They terminated their formal education at sixth class. They ridiculed them and humiliated them and undermined them. They shaved their heads bald.”"

The Irish State has always been dysfunctional in its response to childcare. There’s no reason to think it has changed – certainly the report outlining the HSE’s failures over the last 15 years does not inspire confidence.

Andrew I share your outrage and despair at reading the history of how some children were treated in this country. I have been banging on about these issues for over 25 years now to no avail. It saddens me to say that I concur with Judge Ann Ryan, a wondeful person, who sits in the Children’s Court, when she said recently “It is a joke listening to the children’s referendum — nothing changes, and nothing will change with the referendum, the bottom line is the same as the first day I sat in this court.”

Are people who still attend Roman Catholic Churches in denial too? What that said organisation did to children is unforgivable. Yes we all know that many of the people that work within the Catholic Church are good Christians, but the damage their members have done warrants a complete closure of the organisation in full.

It’s a well-written piece on an Ireland that was and will never happen again. A time when our Government bent the knee to the Pope in Rome; when Ireland protected the clergy and treated them as THE elite in Irish society. And this elite conferred praise and power onto the Government.

The terrible things that were happening in Ireland to vulnerable communities like children were not talked about. And if it did seep into the national conscience the whistle-blowers were hounded out of the country.

Thank goodness we have a different Ireland now; an Ireland where the elite are treated equally and are subject to the same laws as everyone else; an Ireland that protects vulnerable communities – especially children; an Ireland that does not bend the knee to foreign leaders at the expense of Irish citizens.

I better go now as Nurse is approaching with my injection!

You are completely wrong. If ever there was a reason to vote No it is contained in the article.

The reformatory and industrial schools set up of the past is so similar to what our politicians and vested interest groups want to achieve today with the referendum.

For religious orders yesterday read Barnardos and others today – money to be gained by Barnardos from providing guardian ad litems for every child. The religious orders were constantly putting more pressure on the politicians for more inmates so that they could get more capitation money. Barnardos (in 2010 got €16 million from the state in funding) had to lay off staff this year for a while because of a shortage of funds.

For politicians of yesterday read politicians of today. They almost never debated the issue of the industrial schools in the Dail. The Kennedy report issued in 1970 was never debated in the Dáil – Mary Robinson got it debated in the Seanad in 1973! The SAVI (Sex and Violence in Ireland) has been completely ignored by our politicians of today – it shows that i in4 women are sexually abused in their lifetime, mainly in childhood.

Amnesty’s Insight Report into child abuse was completely ignored. Yesterday’s issues remained hidden because of a veil of secrecy with which our politicians and judiciary colluded in. Today the secrecy surrounding child abuse by the state issues is even more secret because of the in camera court system.

For the RCC and its hierarchy and religious orders yesterday, read the legal system and its judiciary and legal professions – barristers and solicitors. Throw in an unaccountable social care system for good measure.

As in the past there are no votes from children so the politicians pretend to care, while looking after the interests of sectional groups.

Fin rightly concludes “As a society, Ireland needs to address this fact that many knew of the abuse of children, and ask why they did not or could not act. This will involve looking at the historic role of the Catholic Church in shaping ideas around morality and sex which made discussion of sexual abuse very difficult. Likewise we must look at the role played by the highly authoritarian and conservative governments of the state who were more concerned about the country’s image than children suffering abuse.”

Today Irish society needs to address the fact that so many young mothers are being abused by our social services which takes their young children from them, gives €15000 to foster carers and won’t provide these young mothers with the support that they deserve when trying to bring up their children in difficult circumstances. 27% of our family units are now single parent homes – Voting Yes will be the same as when society regarded the children of poor families as the ‘destitute’ and shovelled their children into the awful industrial schools. Today they are being shovelled into the HSE and all its horrors – 200 children dying in care, 5000 children in care gone missing.

Vote No

@ Mairead Cryan Well written riposte.

The referendum (at its mildest) is no more than a device that will allow some people to adopt some children.

Considering the hype with which this government – and before that the election – puts on all of its actions it should not come as a surprise that they would dress up the referendum as a Children’s Rights referendum. The wording of the referendum is eerily similar to the section that allowed thousands of Irish children to be placed into slavery in the Institutions with words like “natural and imprescriptible rights” and ” the State as guardian of the common good shall, by proportionate means as provided by law, endeavour to supply the place of the parents, ”

We were down this road before and the State turned its back on thousands upon thousands of children.

Remember too that 800 individual abusers were identified in the Ryan Report – most of them members of just 18 Roman Catholic religious orders. No prosecutions have followed and absolutely no legal sanctions have been brought to bear on these religious orders. Indeed only last week the former President of Ireland Mary McAleese attended a knees-up for the man who founded an organisation that physicaly and sexually tortured thousands of Irish citizens. And these religious orders are refusing to pay even half of the compensation bill.

The Murphy Report found that the Irish hierarchy covered-up and facilitated the sexual torture of children: NO PROSECUTIONS. Indeed in the year both those Reports were published (2009) 15,000 people were prosecuted for fine default or for not having a TV licence.

Indeed, Andrew.
And as we Madison Ave towards our halo-polishing referendum can of whitewash, yet again, kids are being evicted from refugee hostels and dispersed at a moments notice. Quite a few of these vulnerable kids have simply disappeared.

@Damien Yeah. All the usual suspects have lined up with the Govt. to declare themselves as supporters of a ‘Yes’ vote. Even the ISPCC – who shovelled thousands of children into the Industrial schools and, it seems, were paid bounties by the Catholic Church for each child they managed to snatch. Nearly 40% of the 170,000 children snatched to be physical and sexual slaves of the religious orders were snatched by the ISPCC.

Disappointingly even the ULA etc., have come out in support of a ‘Yes’ vote. A left-wing voice on child protection is a very rare thing in Ireland and I thought these new TDs would be more critical, more questioning on this referendum. They just declared for a ‘Yes’ and moved on.

The Irish Labour Party recently reached its 100th. birthday. Yet in that century of years they never managed to close even one Industrial School or even a Magdalene Asylum. Seemingly they believed – as did the Catholic Church – that human, political and social rights stop at the gates of Industrial / Magdalene institutions. For today’s Ireland read: The HSE!!!

I’ve worked in community childcare for 20 years and it breaks my heart seeing children being caught in the middle of a battle, everybody talking about what’s best for the child but no body listening to the children. I’ve seen lots of supports being put into place to support the child in the home/ family but for one reason or another it not working because the parents/ family not having the skills or ability needed/ the situation at home is unsafe or dangerous. The children are usually placed in stable foster homes where the environment for the children is a lot safer/ stable and the turn about in some of the children has be dramatic and for the better. What breaks my heart is the children being bounced from the foster setting to the parents and back (sometimes for years) and the turmoil this causes in the children’s lives. I strongly believe the best place for a child is with the parents but there are occasions where this in not true and the rights of the child must be paramount as long as this system are fair and transparent.

The Irish Labour Party are just a pale pink shadow of lipstick on the opus dei blueshirt collar.

They couldn’t even celebrate their centenial foundation in Clonmel, as the WUAG(Workers and Unemployed Action Group)blocked their appearance in the town in disgust at their doing such a ‘capital’ job under Eamo Gaelmore and Pet Rabbitte..(watch the downthumbs on that).

More Scab-our than Labour.

@ Mick If the constitutional definition of the family included the Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings then a child wouldn’t be taken from his/her own kith and kin. Any parent that abuses a child should have their parental rights taken away.

In the past children were placed in care for a variety of reasons – ostensibly: poverty, family circumstances, being an orphan.

Only 5% of the children in the Institutions were orphans. Many of the incarcerated children were from ‘broken homes’. Ireland, being a Catholic state, outlawed divorce so any marriage that failed was an invite from local Catholic organisations to check up on the family. If the family was poor or without some political clout in the area their children were snatched. Poverty though was the main reason thousands of Irish children were incarcerated – the poverty of the Religious Orders that is. They received a capitation grant from the State for each child and it was nice little earner for them. One Institution was making £1,000,000 a year at it height. So the supply of children to these places was fought over with religious orders touting for children from their agents in the ISPCC, Legion of Mary and other Catholic organisations. Needless to say it was poor and working class families that were targeted – those families who would have found it impossible to challenge the taking of their children in the courts. Indeed only one father was able to go to court to challenge the State & Church over the incarceration of his children – he eventually succeeded.

In theory that judgement should have emptied the Industrial Schools but the State and the social & political parties sat on their collective arses and turned their backs on almost 30,000 children who were left to rot in abusive institutions.

@ Mairead Cryan. I do agree that social policy in this country is have a serious negative effect on those less well of in our society and this really needs to to addressed. There are lows of great one parent families out there and families that while going through difficult financial times are good parents. The tone of your comment seems to suggest the social services go in willy nilly and snatch children from families. From my 20 years experience working in the childcare sector I don’t find this the case. Interventions and supports are usually put in place to try to support the family and the last resort is to remove the child. Where possible the child is tried to be placed with extended family. I believe the best place for a child is with the parents but there are occasions where this in not the case and the rights of the child must be paramount as long as this system are fair and transparent. I’m voting yes because I’m tired of seeing children being bounced about and nobody taking their thoughts into consideration.

@Andrew Brennan, Yea I do agree we have had a depressing history of supporting children/ families. And what the government are doing with the economy at present is unfair to society and having an detrimental effect on society especially the less well off but we need to learn from the past so it doesn’t happen again. The government need to realise we live in a society not an economy. I wonder how much of the horrific abuse could have been prevented if children had a voice that constitutionally had to be heard and taken into account.

@ Mick Children always had a voice – they had a voice in the distant past and they have a voice today. This referendum, if passed, will not mean that these voices will be heard though. The Irish judiciary’s role in consigning thousands of Irish children to incarceration, for the crime of being from a broken or a poor home, has never been looked into with any vigour. Only one judge as far as I know refused point blank to send children into care in the institutions and he was rounded on by the Religious orders who started a whispering campaign against him – even trying to involve Brian Lenihan Snr. When Lenihan Snr. visited Artane Industrial School in the 60s a crowd of children outlined the misery they were suffering. Lenihan’s response was to tell his driver: “Get Me The F*** Outta Here”

The interpretation of the referendum wording will be in the hands and minds of a judiciary that has never cared one jot for the well-being of children from low income homes. An explicit charter of the rights of children in the constitution would be something the judiciary would have to follow and couldn’t interfere with, but the governing elite won’t go that far. Only some rights for some children.

Ireland: Cherishing Some of the Children Some of the Time!!

@ Andrew Brennan. If children had a voice back then how was nothing done? A lot of stories I hear cited are from decades ago and should have never been allowed to happen. If children were not afraid to speak out and listened to this would not happen. the change in the referendum will strengthen the child’s voice and the rights of the child.

Eric Plunkett is a retired childcare manager with the HSE, with 35 years’ experience as a social worker in Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic. In a very informative article in the Irish times he had this to say http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0914/1224324008763.html :

“There is no evidence that adoption provides greater stability for children who have suffered adversity. Widening the threshold for adoption may simply reduce the cost of providing for children in care while doing nothing to meet their needs”.

An even more insightful account of what it is really like is contained in this account of what child care is really like in Ireland from a Facebook site:

“Having trained and gained professional child care qualifications, and then having worked with children in a professional capacity for over 30 years I, like all concerned citizens, obviously want the best for children – and for this reason I will be voting ‘NO’ in the upcoming Children’s referendum.

I have spent 16 years as a Social Care Worker working with the most vulnerable population of children in residential care. I have fostered 5 young people and have also worked with the HSE in areas of Child Protection, so feel qualified to state my concerns as outlined below. To the question “Do I have confidence in this state to provide for ‘the best interests of children”?

No. Unfortunately I do not.” http://www.facebook.com/notes/cllr-pat-kavanagh/an-open-appeal-to-vote-no-in-the-upcoming-childrens-referendum/2462239693476

I can only draw from my own first hand experience over 20 years but I’m sure I could dig up a host of articles from other childcare professionals who are for a yes vote. Oh he’s not retired he works for Fostering First Ireland- ” a non-statutory (or private business) fostering agency providing foster care services across Ireland.” If there is a yes it would be easier for long term foster families to adopt the children in their care, i wonder whose business would be effected.

What my post said was that Eric Plunket was retired from the HSE, not that he had stopped working. His article becomes more important and adds to Eric’s credibility when you consider that it would be to the financial benefit of his current employer to increase the number of children taken from their parents thereby increasing the foster agency’s business. Yet Eric is suggesting caution when voting yes or no – compare this with the Barnardos stance on the referendum

Mairead. if children are taken out of the limbo that is foster care and allowed stable, loving and supportive families to adopt the children in their sometimes long term care- there would be no need for foster care agencies.

@ Mick You mustn’t have read any of the recent reports on child abuse (Ryan & Murphy in particular)! Children DID speak up. Children DID report abuse. But there was always – ALWAYS – a deference to authorities. Police Superintendents were handing over reports of child abuse (by clergy) to bishops in charge of the cleric. In one institution at a sodality the children felt able to report that they were being abused by clergy. The sodality was shut down.

There are numerous contemporary documents (in Dept of Ed.) of parents complaining that their children were being abused in the institutions but the Dept. deferred to the religious orders superiors about the abuse. This led to the abused child being punished more – for speaking up.

One govt. department (Dept. of Health) wrote a secret report on conditions in one institution after the death of a child. It kept the report secret even though it revealed that the children were living in dangerous, unhealthy conditions and that these conditions were responsible for the death of one child and the serious ill-health of 200 other children. It AGAIN deferred to the authority that was responsible for causing the death and the ill-health.

This might be in the past to you Mick but for us survivors it is very much in the here and now. WE spoke up. WE resisted. WE fought. We didn’t participate in our own abuse. The State deferred ALWAYS to the abusers and abandoned the children.

Most of the abuses wouldn’t have happened if the State exerted itself if it had been proactive on the side of the child. Most of the abuses could have been stopped if the children’s kith and kin were legally recognised by the constitution. Relatives of these children did try and try to gain access to their kith and kin in the institutions but the State always deferred to the religious order on whether a child could have access to their own kith and kin.

Remember too that all these children in the institutions from the lower socio-economic strata of society and that would not have been able to afford going to court to assert their rights as parents or as blood kin.

The referendum, if passed, will not strengthen the voice of the child – indeed it is implicit in the wording that the State’s voice will be immeasurably strengthened and, considering that the cohort of society who are going to be affected by the passing of this referendum will be from the lower socio-economic groups, the State’s power will be overwhelming … as overwhelming as it was in those far off days.

Long-winded – Definition: Wearisomely verbose.

No I do not mean the Catholic Church, I dont think it would be anything new or startling to say the catholic church needs to face up to the child abuse its cover up is well documented at this stage. The we I am referring to is wider society. I cant see how my age is relevant to be honest.

Cogent well argued point Roger. I write history quite alot, I spent several years working as an archaeologist in Dublin and I have a blog, therefore instead of calling myself a surgeon or a carpenter I have taken an unusual decision to call myself a historian, archaeologist and blogger. Whether you think I am good historian, archaeologist or blogger is entirely your own perorgative but you should actually read the article before you criticse it.

The article discusses the issue that evidence was fairly obvious and the all too often mantra of we never knew is not true. If you would like to debate that I am more than happy to offer to debate this. Do you think people did not know?