CHILD WELFARE GROUPS:CHILD WELFARE groups yesterday said it was vital that authorities learn lessons from the inquiry report to ensure today's vulnerable children are protected.
Fergus Finlay of the children’s charity Barnardos said it was clear the abuse suffered by children, as well as their powerlessness, humiliation and ongoing exposure to fear, made their lives “a living hell”.
He said it was the duty of all to learn lessons to ensure the lives of children involved in the care system today are protected and respected. “We must finally face up to the need to recognise the special importance and fragility of childhood in our Constitution, we must ensure that the rights and needs of children have a paramount place in the development and implementation of public policy, and we must guarantee that the voices of children are never silenced again,” he said.
The Rape Crisis Network Ireland called on the Government to assign a senior official to be responsible for ensuring the recommendations are implemented.
“While it may appear that this report closes a long chapter by revealing a shameful past, today’s continued failings show this is not the case,” said Clíona Saidléar, the network’s policy director.
“Recent events, such as those in Monageer, continue to demonstrate to us that inadequate State and societal responses continue to fail children.”
The ISPCC’s chief executive, Ashley Balbirnie, commended the commission’s work and accepted its recommendations, particularly for the implementation of the Children First guidelines.
Let Our Voices Emerge, a group which has questioned the alleged scale of abuse by religious congregations, condemned the actions of the abusers. “The catalogue of horrific physical and sexual abuse is far in excess of what we were led to believe by the religious congregations,” said the group’s co-founder, Florence Horsman Hogan.
The Rape Crisis Centre in Northern Ireland said it was time a judicial inquiry with a similar remit was launched in the North.
