Tribunals never result in justice for victims
ANOTHER pointless Tuam and/ or ‘Grace’ tribunal shows that in Ireland we’re slow learners, failing to realise that tribunals or ‘whatever’ legalistic reviews never result in findings of guilt or prosecution.
At best they provide amusing TV exposure as they get bogged down with legalese, with possible culprits paying highly skilled barristers to hide in the thickets of the law. At worst they feature obfuscation, delays, half-truths, lies and perjury, all of which have elements of doubt, and all of which cost John Taxpayer millions with a gravy train for the legal profession the only certainty.
This gravy train stretches back to Goodman via Moriarty and umpteen others with no prosecution, no criminal charges and no prison sentences a common denominator.
In the ‘Grace’ case, surely some concerned group can take civil action against the Department of Health, against specific social workers, against the Department of Justice and the Garda?
There is only 20 years of evidence so perhaps such a civil case would fail, but it would be public and would cost the taxpayer less than a tribunal, and there might be a guilty person or group.
Already in Tuam we have problems: protracted silence from Bon Secours, plus employment of a PR company, the mantra of ‘different times’, nuns now dead or senile, and records mislaid or transferred to government departments where they will probably also end up lost or mislaid.
So a tribunal or ‘whatever’ will be simply an exercise in political posturing, because the political arm of the State was a willing accomplice to the happenings in Tuam; perhaps slightly less culpable than the Bon Secours nuns or the local population or Irish society, but culpable nonetheless.
Again, a civil case might be taken against the Bon Secours order for criminal neglect and also against the government – and for evidence of such possible neglect, there are possibly more than 800 bodies of children in unmarked graves.
Hopefully if such a case takes place there will be sufficient expertise by litigants to ensure that this time culpability is not fobbed off by the orders. JOHN P KELLY, Clontarf, Dublin.
The power of religion
THROUGHOUT history, the Catholic Church had such amazing power and in Ireland achieved such tragic compliance. But to examine the basis of that power we have to go back over two thousand years, and more.
Such a tenuous beginning, set in small patch of present-day Palestine, and a set of rules and regulations that have become warped in the teaching and altered, added to in the application – this is the organisation that ruled Tuam and the Ireland we are addressing, and which now has left it battered and bruised.
We do need to examine how this happened. And in a time when individuals of all shades of belief and opinion are vigorously out there, we need to care if this might happen again.
Cyberspace is filled with advice as to who or what we should be, believe and do.
In the face of this onslaught people need to know how to guard their human freedom.
Brainwashing and psychological intimidation worked in the year 300 AD and onwards.
It still works today, but the instruments of application are more varied and subtle.
We also need to ask why, as a people, we are so deferential. We need to know that we can think for ourselves. MARIE MacSWEENEY,
Drogheda. Co. Louth.
More repeats, please!
AS I am one of the many TV viewers who enjoy the repeats of quality programmes on the box, I am wondering if others have noticed the lack of reruns of late.
I understand part of the reason for this is because, when preparing to shoot a series, big superstars are often used to play heroes and villains.
A big name usually guarantees a big audience, much to the delight of the advertisers.
Some, or even most, of these overpaid superstars insist on signing a repeat clause which gives them the right to veto a proposed repeat of a particular series they may appear in. In other words, these superstars of today don’t want you to see them in a piece of rubbish they filmed some years ago, afraid it might damage their credibility as actors. They don’t even own the copyright of anything on the screen, yet they can deprive you and me of seeing something worth repeating.
One would imagine that when they first started out in the shaky acting profession, they were glad to take whatever role that was offered to them.
Little did they expect to have enough clout to be able to deprive fellow cast members and crew of a much-needed repeat fee.
Is there not an Office of Fair Trading anymore? If so, surely they would have some input into all this? Does the actors’ union Equity have any say? If so, wouldn’t both have the power to overturn an overpaid star’s egotistical decision to deprive other thespians and behind-the-scenes professionals of a livelihood?
Big stars, my foot. If you can call today’s actors superstars, what, then, do you call the likes of Olivier, Brando, Bogart, Bacall, Pacino, et al? DESMOND FITZGERALD,
Sandycove, Co. Dublin.