Woman’s petition to stop child abuse records being sealed for 75 years
A PETITION to stop child abuse records being sealed for 75 years has been started by a woman whose three relatives spent years in the Magdalene Laundries with devastating consequences.
Laura Angela Collins, from London, has been compelled to try to stop the Retention of Records Bill – approved by Cabinet but which has yet to pass through the Dáil – as her mother Mary Teresa Collins spent years in a Magdalene Laundry in Cork.
Laura’s grandmother, Angelina, died aged 57, and was buried in a mass grave in the Peacock Lane site at St Finbarr’s Cemetery in the county.
To further compound the family’s sadness, her aunt died by suicide one Christmas Day after she was released from a Magdalene Laundry, where she was confined from the age of 14 to 27.
She said her mother Mary Teresa, 58, from Cobh, Co. Cork, has spent decades fighting to ensure survivors’ voices are not further silenced after being ‘gagged’ by the Residential Institutions Redress Board when they accepted compensatory payments.
‘I started the petition to show the Government that this is not what survivors and the public want. The effects the laundry had on my mum have never gone away.
‘The large Irish community of survivors in England feel very cut off and distanced from this and, again, their voices are not being heard. The abuse for them has never stopped, and this is another cover-up,’ she told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
In a statement to the MoS, the Archdiocese of Dublin, said it would ‘support the matter being debated further’.
Ian Elliott, safeguarding consultant and first chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, said he is opposed to the Bill.
Mr Elliott praised the bravery of Patricia Donovan, a niece of Bishop Eamonn Casey, who in the MoS last week revealed for the first time that she accused him of rape and child sexual abuse for more than a decade.
‘She should feel vindicated and I hope it is now acknowledged that what she said happened, did happen and that should be acknowledged by the Church. She should be supported in every way from the Church. It is a tragedy that she is not receiving help and support. The Church should be supporting those they have hurt,’ said Mr Elliott.
He continued: ‘Casey’s reputation is in tatters. I don’t think anyone could believe that he has not done what he has been accused of. I hope that this Bill will not pass.’
Solicitor Tommy Dalton, of Crowley Millar in Limerick, who consulted with Ms Donovan and acted on behalf of another woman who took High Court proceedings against Bishop Casey, said this week: ‘Questions are now being posed for the Church that need to be answered.
‘I am satisfied that in at least two instances there was suffering and, in those two instances, they had to prove their case.
‘I don’t think that is the message the Church should be sending out,’ said Mr Dalton.