THERE could be no more compelling testimony to the
vicious and heartbreaking abuse suffered by little
children in Irish residential care than that
recounted by Michael O'Brien on RTE's Questions and
Answers. Mr O'Brien's frank and poignant retelling
of the torture he suffered in St Joseph's Industrial
School in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, in the 1940s, took
the studio and TV audience by surprise. A former
Fianna Fáil Mayor of Clonmel, Mr O'Brien told
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey that the
Government did not have “the foggiest” understanding
of the pain felt by the victims of child abuse.
He also slated how
victims were made to feel when they went before the
Laffoy Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. He
said the five-day experience nearly drove him to
take his own life. He told Mr Dempsey: "Ye had seven
barristers there questioning me, telling me that I
was telling lies when I told them that I got raped
of a Saturday, got an merciful beating after it and
he then came along the following morning and put
Holy Communion in my mouth".
The religious orders, implicated in the abuse
report, initially went to ground when the Ryan
report was published last week. However, Mr
O'Brien's appearance on the flagship RTE television
programme seemed to cause a sea-change in their
attitudes. Media statements from the orders,
initially slow in coming, began to flow - indicating
that many would revisit the issue of compensation
despite a 2002 deal with the Government requiring
them to pay only 10% of what is now certain to be a
€1 billion compensation fund.
Donegal County Council this week announced its
intention to open books of solidarity with the abuse
victims. They will be available at public services
centres throughout the county. Meanwhile, many
thousands of people have now heard Mr O'Brien's
moving testimony - both on RTE's Q&A and now on
YouTube where the above clip has already been
downloaded more than 44,000 times.
