Last Thursday, in light of the latest report into historical sex abuse at schools run by religious orders, John McGuirk expressed concern that there could be a risk of a witch hunt in the event of possible prosecutions. “There must be very few harder accusations to disprove, I think, than the accusation that a person committed some kind of sexual crime decades previously.”
My first reaction was that, despite being a former criminal defence barrister, this was certainly not my concern. My first concern and that echoed by the government and leaked all over the Irish Times, is that the final bill required to compensate the thousands of people who had their childhoods and perhaps much of their adulthood destroyed by this abuse will run into the billions. On Thursday, the Irish Times were running with, Schools abuse redress: Concern in Government over costs running into billions.”
“While there is general agreement in Government that a redress scheme for victims will be necessary, there is growing concern at the potential costs which some senior figures fear could run into the billions.” By Friday the government was talking about time limits on any abuse inquiry.
Just to keep things in perspective, “In the case of the scheme to compensate victims of abuse in residential institutions, the estimated cost of €250 million rose to €1.245 billion, plus some €200 million in legal costs. Religious orders contributed less than €250 million in total.” Sources continued to speculate that any new redress scheme could exceed 5 billion Euros.
So, for the residential abuse scandal the then government was about a cool 1 billion Euros out in their estimation of what the final bill to the taxpayer would be. On top of that there was the 200 million Euros in legal costs. As a lawyer it cannot be said enough that we must never forget about the legal fees.
(Incidentally, in the Irish Times morning briefing on Friday, the lead picture was one of Our Lady, as if our Blessed Mother herself came down and did all the abusing. Not subtle by the Irish Times. But I digress.)
John’s piece raised legitimate questions over the likelihood of the number of abusers involved and the level of depravity uncovered, the general idea being that these accusations would not reach the criminal standard of proof.
My argument is that there will be few criminal trials, despite the Garda Commissioner encouraging people to come forward, because many offenders have died. Second, without falling into hysteria I don’t think any of us should ever underestimate the number of child abusers and paedophiles out there. These monsters walk amongst us.
Why that very day, a teacher at Eton was banned from teaching for life for internet searches looking for gay little boys.
There will be many men – I won’t speculate as to numbers – who will log on their computer tonight to view the most depraved and disgusting child pornography you can imagine. I have a very low view of humanity overall, which I believe puts me at an advantage over others. You only must consider a singleon-going case in France, of a husband who organised the most horrific abuse against his wife of 50 years, to understand that evil is everywhere.
We know that in many Irish institutions that had the care and custody of children abuse was widespread but physical and sexual abuse was pervasive in British boarding schools also. Not a weekend goes by where I am not reading about another semi-famous man saying he was abused at some fancy school in Britain, including Princesses Diana’s brother Earl Spencer.
You could be a dirt-poor Irish boy in a residential school run by the Christian Brothers in Dublin, or the rich heir to a British estate in the shires whose sister married the future king. It doesn’t matter; abusers find their victims.
The question now for the Irish taxpayer, is where to go from here. Not to state the obvious but when you hear the term the government considers a redress scheme, or State compensation package could run into billions, what this means is taxpayers money is on the line.
The case law is clear, even though the abuse went on in religious orders the State was also responsible. It comes as the State’s human rights watchdog said there is a legal obligation to pay survivors of sexual abuse in schools €84,000 in compensation, in line with previous case law. In June of this year, the State settled 10 High Court cases taken by survivors of abuse in schools, and each was paid €84,000 in redress.
Although I agree that the State has a moral and legal duty to compensate abuse victims, as they were also responsible for their care and education at schools, the government is right when they say it is time for religious orders to step up and pay up. It seems unfair to me that the Irish taxpayer of today who had nothing to do with the abuse in decades past should now be on the hook for abuse that occurred in the Blackrock Junior school, Willow Park. (130 allegations and 24 alleged abusers.). Blackrock is now run by the Holy Ghost Congregation and sits on 56 acres of parkland.
I hate to ever agree with the Taoiseach on anything, but he is correct when he says, religious orders who ran the schools now had to “step up” when it came to redress. If assets must be sold, then so be it. It seems perverse that taxpayers who send their child to the local community school should have to contribute to the predicted €5 billion compensation scheme, so Blackrock college does not have to touch any of their assets that run into millions.
And it’s not just the taxpayers, this also comes down to a simple economic question of opportunity cost. If the taxpayer (the government has no money of its own) compensates to the tune of billions one group of wronged people, this means there is less money to sort out the shocking state of homelessness in this country. The latest figures are 14,429 people are without a home of which 4,400 children are in emergency accommodation which has terrible outcomes for children.
On the same day that the government was raising concerns as to the final abuse bill, the next headline was “almost 230,000 children are going without basic items and activities for a comfortable life in the State.” These are children who live in a family who cannot afford a winter coat or new pair of shoes. If the taxpayer is on the hook to close to 5 billion Euro, there will be less economic support for low-income families and those children just must cope with the cold.
Whatever the final redress scheme is, it should not be either an adversarial system, a meal ticket for the lawyers or indeed a disproportionate cost for taxpayer of today. The first question that must be directed towards the religious orders involved are, how much? How much are you going to contribute to the scheme?
The other question, just for me, and perhaps for a blog for another day, is why parents are still falling over themselves to send their children to Blackrock, Terenure, Belvedere and the rest of them. I don’t know of any other institution other than US gymnastics who could suffer this level of reputational damage and still be so popular. Answers on a postcard please.