‘Disregard continues in efforts to silence voices’
Church and State leaders colluded to allow the affront to humanity that took place in mother and baby homes, writes John McGuinness
MOTHERS, babies and woman were turned into faceless numbers by a misogynistic church and Irish State, without any objection or questioning from politicians. They were not numbers. They were human beings and what was done to them was horrendous.
In a post-famine, post-colonial and post-civil war Ireland, our jaded people largely believed what they were told. They trusted and listened to leaders of church and State. To blame them for doing that is nonsense. It is an attempt to spread blame as wide as possible. If you have control, you have responsibilities. The trouble very often is that those in control seek to avoid responsibility.
Church and State are institutions, not people. It was leaders, people, in church and State who demanded loyalty and obedience to hierarchical structures. They were the ones who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear and worked with one another to enable this unbelievable, terrible affront to humanity to take place. Let there be no doubt about that. And no hiding behind “society being responsible”, because “society” was largely in the dark or suffused by imposed shame.
Politics isn’t a person. It is what people do. Politicians are public representatives who, in my opinion, are there partly to bring humanity to the application of laws and rules that are often too rigid and sometimes ridiculous. But we did not challenge church or State, or stand up in a meaningful way until very late in the day. Down through the decades, politicians too turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to what was going on in mother and baby homes.
These homes began in 1930 and, despite what is now being suggested, their victims are still fighting for recognition and information. Files have gone missing and the clock has and is being run down. It’s an old story. It happened to Maurice McCabe, who had the strength to fight back.
I entered local politics in 1979 and I too believed that State and church could be trusted. I can’t remember mother and baby homes being discussed or questioned. It wasn’t until I was elected to the Dáil in 1997 that I learned that blind loyalty to, and uncritical acceptance of, the leadership of church, State or party wasn’t a good idea.
The first duty of any State is to keep its people safe. That is what, broadly, priests (the church), public servants (the State) and politicians and the professions offer and promise to do. In more innocent times, our people believed that is what they were doing. “Society” cannot be blamed for that not happening, but church, State and political leaders can.
I have learned that the culture in church and State is, first and foremost: Never explain or apologise. Keep the institution safe. This requires that many people within institutions sacrifice their individuality for what they imagine is the greater good — a Faustian bargain that serves neither the individual nor the country well.
Every cleric, politician, civil servant and professional person who knew anything about what was going on in these homes ignored their duty of care to humanity and our country by turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the women, children and families, dead and alive, who are now calling out for justice. It was their duty to act. That is what their vocations required of them, or what the public elected them to do. They cannot blame “society” for their lack of care.
This disregard for humanity did not stop in 1998. It continues even now. Every effort has been made in recent times to silence voices from the past and those that amplify them.
Files have been lost and information denied. One obstacle after another has been created in an attempt to obstruct and wind down the clock, which the Dáil has only begun to question, after years of allowing the State free rein.
Why should legislation regarding the release of files and information take so long? Why does everything troublesome to the State take so long to be dealt with?
It’s because the State knows that time takes care of most problems. That culture-driven response, which reduces human pain and suffering to a numbers game, is something that has to be brought to an end, because it leads to very bad outcomes.
Without doubt, there are more scandals out there waiting for a spotlight.
Irish State institutions are exhibiting a growing detachment from the people they are there to serve. That is losing them the respect they need to function.
Hierarchical structures with deeply embedded cultures, they have venerated the status quo “long past the time when the quo has lost its status” and resist all efforts made to change them and make them efficient, accountable and transparent.
In fact, they have been allowed by politicians in the Dáil to get beyond control and create satellite institutions, like Tusla, which is a miserable failure, so that responsibility is a ping pong ball that never comes to rest.
The Dáil is there to stop this happening by maintaining a tension between those who represent and those who serve the public. Instead, it is a nodding dog on the back of the state bus, marginalised and ineffective — a pawn in the hands of the State.
It has quietly become a rule taker and defender, rather than a rule maker and a strong voice for change, transparency and accountability. Its committees have been handcuffed and its TDs corralled and restricted.
I agree with and fully support Catherine Connolly and other TDs who recently raised their voices in the Dáil and I applaud what they are doing. It is about time, they should keep it up and more should join them.
This scandal, this stain on the soul of our country, this loss of reputation and, above all, this wrecking of thousands of lives, has its genesis in lack of humanity and transparency and an excess of arrogance in the people who led our church and State, and lack of backbone in politicians in successive governments.
And it continues today, because the families and individuals who have suffered appalling treatment at the hands of church and State still have not got what they want. Despite apologies and fine words, they should be aware that they still have some way to go to achieve closure, if my experiences of the State in inaction are anything to go by.
The people representing mothers and babies should continue to agitate and insist that their reasonable demands are met without delay, because that has not happened with Grace and 47 other horrendous cases.
The Dáil should back them all the way and begin the difficult task of making the institutions of the State more open, honest, humane and accountable, to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. There is no other way to erase the damage done to the reputation of our country and no better way to demonstrate that we are sorry and will go hard miles to make our republic a safe place for all its people.
The women who have struggled so valiantly to reveal the stain on our republican and democratic credentials deserve their day and a heartfelt apology, but they also deserve our thanks for revealing glaring inadequacies within our system of government that require immediate attention.
And they absolutely deserve a speedy response to their reasonable demands.
‘That response, which reduces human pain to a numbers game, has to end’