RTE programme "unjust" to former orphanage inmates

FORMER residents of the Goldenbridge orphanage last night reacted strongly to the Prime Time programme which featured an interview with Sisters Mary Xavieria.

Ms Christine Buckley, who appeared in the RTE documentary Dear Daughter two months ago, described the programme as an act".

Ms Buckley watched the programme along with two other former inmates of Goldenbridge, Ms Carmel McDonnell and Ms Sheila Doyle. With them was Mr Louis Lentin, who made Dear Daughter.

Ms Doyle and Ms Buckley said they did not accept the apologies which Sister Xavieria made on the programme.

Ms Doyle, who appeared in a recorded interview on the Prime Time programme, said Sister Xavieria should have said at the end of the programme that she hoped that former orphans would forgive her. Instead, what the nun had said was that she hoped the differences between the two sides could be resolved.

Ms Buckley said the programme was "a grave injustices to former inmates".

Sister Xavieria said on the programme that she had not poured boiling water on any child and that she had not beaten any child so much that she or he had to receive stitches.

On last night's programme, a Fine Gael deputy, Mr Jim Mitchell, said he had seen toys and lollipops when he had visited Goldenbridge, to which Ms Buckley replied: "How dare Jim Mitchell ignore our pain."

Sister Xavieria said that rosary beads had been made at the orphanage as a money spinner.

"At what cost to us? To shiver and shake and wrack with fright, because that's what we did," said Ms Buckley.

Both Ms Buckley and Ms Doyle said it was not true that Sister Xavieria had used a ruler to hit children; it was a bigger stick.

In the programme, Ms Christine Doyle differed with her sister, Ms Sheila Doyle, over an incident in which Ms Sheila Doyle was allegedly locked in a bunker at Goldenbridge as a punishment.

Ms Sheila Doyle said she had been locked in the bunker for a while day and not 20 minutes as her sister had said.

Asked for her reaction to Sister Xavieria's apology, Ms Doyle said: "What else could she say? you know it was in her face".

Mr Lentin said he had no doubt but that all of the women he had spoken to when preparing his film I had been telling the truth.

It was Mr Lentin's film two months ago which began the controversy into Goldenbridge.

Mr Lentin said he still believes and always will that the women - were telling the truth. "I cannot see how anyone who saw the sincerity of the people in that film could believe otherwise," he said.

All through the showing of Prime Time the three women and Mr Lentin listened intently, taking notes and sometimes gasping in astonishment or surprise at statements made by Sister Xavieria.

Ms Carmel McDonnell, who was in Goldenbridge after Sister Xavieria had left, said she was now operating an independent helpline. She had had about 700 calls since giving her number out on the Pat Kenny Show in March.