A vile attempt to destroy a totally innocent woman

I note that the 1985 Kerry Babies Tribunal exonerated gardaí who investigated the case of any wrongdoing in relation to their handling of the investigation, but found that the investigation itself was ‘slipshod’.

Surely a pitiful and gross understatement, given that gardaí somehow managed to elicit a completely false signed statement from Joanne Hayes admitting to a murder she not only didn’t commit, but could not possibly have committed, and equally bogus confessions from members of Joanne’s family admitting to helping to dispose of a murdered baby.

Slipshod? It was a nothing short of a vile attempt by elements within our police force to destroy an innocent woman.

And it took more than three decades for the gardaí to come clean and formally declare that Joanne Hayes was innocent. That, surely, is another scandal.

Are any of the gardaí responsible for the extraction of those false confessions still in the land of the living? If so, I suggest that the least they can do is accept responsibility for their actions.

John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co. Kilkenny. …It is right and proper for the State to apologise to Joanne Hayes. She deserves good compensation too.

This situation reminds me of the late Eileen Flynn. She deserves a posthumous apology for what she suffered. She was fired from her teaching position because she had a baby with her partner who was separated and he later became her husband.

She died young, aged 53. But that kind of stress would damage any person’s health.

Ireland has a very dark history since independence. Slowly, good journalism has exposed the horrific abuse of power by Church, State and financial institutions in Ireland.

There was terrible ignorance. I always remember the woman who told me that she would not let her daughter go to England to train as a nurse because it was a pagan country. Maureen Lowndes, Geashill, Co. Offaly.