Irish child abuse report a 'whitewash'

Many of the victims abused as children at the hands of nuns and priests in Ireland have been left angered by a long-awaited report. Skip related content
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The Child Abuse Commission report concludes the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children and did nothing about it.

It detailed a catalogue of disturbing and chronic sexual, physical and emotional abuse inflicted on thousands of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by both religious and lay staff over the last 70 years.

But some victims of that abuse have branded the report a "whitewash" as it holds no individuals to account and no abusers will be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry.

And there were angry exchanges between Commission staff and victims of abuse, who were barred from the launch of the report in a central Dublin hotel.

Victim John Walsh, of leading campaign group Irish Survivors of Child Abuse said: "The little comfort we have is the knowledge that it vindicated the victims who were raped and sexually abused."

"I'm very angry, very bitter, and feel cheated and deceived. I would have never opened my wounds if I'd known this was going to be the end result.

"It has devastated me and will devastate most victims because there is no criminal proceedings and no accountability whatsoever."

While the names of alleged individual perpetrators have not been published - except for those already convicted by the court - the inquiry produced specific findings against 216 facilities.

Around 2,500 men and women who were abused in schools and institutions across the country gave evidence to the Commission, led by Mr Justice Sean Ryan.

Sexual abuse of boys in the Artane Industrial School in Dublin and Letterfrack, Co Galway, was a chronic problem and at St Joseph's Industrial School in Tralee, Co Kerry, a member of the Christian Brothers Order terrorised children for more than seven years.

He had been moved there from a day school where his violence towards children was causing severe problems with parents.

Hundreds of men and women recalled being beaten on every part of their body with a list of weapons, including leather straps, sticks, farm implements, and even hurling sticks. Others were sexually abused, some described being gang raped.

Children were so badly neglected, survivors spoke of scavenging for food from waste bins and animal feed. And unsupervised bullying in boys' schools often left smaller, weaker children without food.

Accommodation was cold, spartan and bleak while children were often left in soiled, wet work clothes after being forced to toil for long hours outdoors in farms, the report found.

The Commission was set up in 2000 by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern after a documentary revealed the scale of neglect in schools, hospitals and institutions run by religious orders.

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