Sir, – The decision by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice to deny justice to the survivors of abuse in Bethany House makes me despair that Ireland will ever change (“Government rules out Bethany Home redress”, Home News, July 23rd).
Yet again, given the choice between doing the right thing, even at a cost, we instead see this Government default to type and instead choose to protect the system instead of its victims.
That choice denies justice to the victims of abuse in a Protestant children’s home, where innocent children were sent because the State deliberately and consciously refused to carry out its duty to protect the most vulnerable in society.
It is simply not good enough for Mr Kenny and Mr Shatter to argue that times were different then. Lots of Irish people grew up in poor families but were not abused or mistreated, precisely because “even then” it was as wrong to abuse children as it is now and people knew it then as they know it now.
There is no dispute that children were abused at Bethany, so the only question remains is why it has been agreed that the State has liability for facilitating the regime of abuse inflicted on children by the Catholic Church, but then uses the same facts but reaches a different outcome when it comes to abuse by other religions. – Yours, etc, *
DESMOND FitzGERALD,
Canary Wharf,
London.
Sir, – Saying the Government had arrived carefully at the decision to rule out creating a redress scheme for Bethany survivors, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter acknowledged that the former residents would be “disappointed” at the decision. While acknowledging the attempts that have been made to heal the scars and wounds associated with institutional child abuse by way of the publication of the Ryan report, the State apology to victims and the setting up of the redress scheme, I believe the continued exemption of former residents of the Bethany Home from a redress scheme is not just “disappointing” but morally wrong. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Delaford Lawn,
Knocklyon, Dublin 16.
* This letter was amended on July 26th, 2013.