Department officials 'incompetent, lazy'

DEBATE ON RYAN REPORT:SENIOR DEPARTMENT of Education officials are either obscurantist members of secret societies or else they are "incompetent, lazy and destructive", Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn has claimed.

Mr Quinn told Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe that “either officials in your department are members of secret societies such as the Knights of Columbanus and Opus Dei and they have taken it upon themselves to protect the interests of the clerical orders” or “you are politically incompetent and incapable of managing the department of education”. He was speaking during the during the two-day Dáil debate on the Ryan commission report on institutional child abuse.

He said “we need to take our entire primary school infrastructure into public ownership” as Ireland is the only EU member state with a primary school system controlled by private organisations.

Mr Quinn said to the Taoiseach that while he had asked the religious orders to do an inventory of their assets following his meeting with them earlier this week, “the man sitting beside you knows what they are and he is refusing to tell me”, he said of Mr O’Keeffe.

The Labour deputy expressed his anger that the department failed to answer parliamentary questions about the number of primary schools owned by religious orders. He repeatedly received the same answer that “the information requested by the deputy is not readily available to the deputy in a format that is readily retrievable”.

He put it to the Minister “that there is a continued culture of deferment and obedience to the Catholic Church and the religious orders in the Department of Education that has continually frustrated getting answers to simple questions”.

He said to Mr O’Keeffe: “I don’t believe you’re bad man, Minister, and I don’t believe you’re a Catholic right-wing secret obscurantist. But I’m telling you this, many of the people working for you on a permanent salary – because you’ll be gone in a couple of years – most certainly are or else they are incompetent, lazy and destructive. You can take your choice as to what the explanation is but I’ve given you the facts.

“You are and your department are concealing from us, the citizens of this Republic, the nature and the ownership and the scale” of schools sites by the religious.

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes was also highly critical and said the Minister “should also apologise on behalf of his department”.

He is not, said Mr Hayes, “personally responsible, but the attitude shown by the department, especially in respect of the original Laffoy commission, was an absolute disgrace.

“At times, it appeared the department was intent on impeding the work of the commission during the earlier part of the investigation. Had others lived up to their responsibilities in those few years we would have had this report much earlier than now.”

He called on the Minister to withdraw his Supreme Court appeal to a High Court decision in favour of young women who were over 18 and under 21 but still in the care of the State because they remained in the institutions, and who “had unwanted pregnancies at the time”.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan questioned the actions of senior officials “who were aware of the complaints but passed the buck or looked the other way.”

The State was “happy to pick up the tab for the religious congregations”, he said, but “when a victim attempts to find justice in the court, the State throws the kitchen sink to win”.