Competitive righteousness is easy – we need real remedies
YOU don’t need to be a parent – though it sometimes helps. The reality is that, one way or another, we all have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, neighbours, workmates, friends and acquaintances.
Many of these people around us have been affected, one way or another, by the evil horror that is child abuse. Many of us have learned of these people’s pain, sometimes in distressing and graphic detail.
This latest case is not “historic”, dating from a time in our recent and dark past. Nor does it relate to our religious heritage, especially that of the Catholic Church’s poor history on this issue in the recent past.
This case began little over a decade ago. It involved our secular authorities. Saying that is not any attempt in any way to exempt some religious people for flagrant abuses of sacred trust – it is a simple statement of the awful reality that we must face.
It also raises questions of grave crimes being reported and at best a very slow reaction. This leads on, yet again, to questions of whether individuals will be called to book.
Or, will we yet again be told of “systemic failures”. The clear follow-on from that is the question, now tragically rhetorical: can this happen again?
Recent history teaches us that sexual abuse, and child sex abuse especially, remains with us. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar summed up the nation’s sentiment in the Dáil.
“Sexual crimes against children are the worst form of crime: abhorrent, unspeakable and unforgivable,” the Taoiseach said.
Quite correctly, the other parties and Independents combined to voice their horror. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald summed up the nation’s dismay at the authorities’ reprehensible delayed reaction to this abhorrent series of events.
Ms McDonald said that in 2007, the young girl, Rachel Barry, disclosed that she and another girl, known as ‘Amy’, were repeatedly raped by the now jailed culprit, Keith Burke.
The Sinn Féin leader said the complaint was deemed credible but the young girl, Amy, and another child were left in the same foster home up to 2011.
The Taoiseach said an inquiry had been initiated in April 2016 under the National Review Panel, which comprises a range of experts working in the child care sector.
He pledged that the child care agency Tusla will act on the review recommendations and a report, delayed by the criminal case, is expected soon.
We have heard and tolerated versions of this often in the recent past. But now we need real remedies.