Colm O'Gorman appeals for an open, root-and-branch review of the failings of the Laffoy Commission in order to achieve justice
When the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, announced his intention to carry out a review of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, his decision was met with widespread support. It was clear to many that the commission was becoming bogged down.
Miss Justice Laffoy's resignation has brought into sharp focus the considerable difficulties the investigation has faced in carrying out its work. She has complained that the commission has been "in a practical sense rendered powerless", that "the only clear inference to be drawn from recent communication from the Department [of Education\] to the commission is that the Government has decided that the commission will not implement its current statutory mandate".
Powerful and critical words indeed from a highly respected member of the judiciary appointed as head of a tribunal put into place by an Act of the Oireachtas to investigate some of the most appalling failures of the State.
Given the fact that it is the State, and specifically the Department of Education, that is subject to investigation, what is clear is that there must now be a transparent examination of the workings of the commission and its relationship with Government. I remember clearly the Taoiseach's apology to victims of abuse made on behalf of the State, the Government and the people.
I was living in London at the time and was moved to tears by the power of such an unprecedented statement and acceptance of responsibility made in such a forthright and human way.
I was moved to e-mail the Taoiseach's office commending him for his words and expressing my pride in my country for having the courage to name such gross failures. I believed that Mr Ahern's statement had integrity. I still do.
This State must be prepared to acknowledge the horrific abuses perpetrated against children committed to "care" by the State to institutions run by religious orders of the Catholic Church. There can be no greater scandal, no greater corruption than the abandonment to unthinkable abuse of thousands of children, and it was all done in our name. We all share a collective responsibility as citizens of this State.
That is why it is vital that the integrity of that statement and the commission, which was the cornerstone of the State's efforts to achieve justice for victims of abuse, be vindicated.
It is time the difficulties the commission has encountered be named and that all effort possible be directed to resolving these issues in order to find a way forward.
Such an examination may well discover that the commission was in many ways ill conceived, that it was perhaps naïve to believe that those subject to investigation would not use the law and their constitutional rights to challenge the commission's right to carry out one of its core functions: to make findings of fact and name institutions and individuals who it found to be responsible for acts of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, for the beating, rape and exploitation of thousands of children. We may also discover that the number of allegations to be investigated by the commission was underestimated.
That the commission had to change, that a review of its work was essential in the interests of all involved is beyond doubt, but the suggestions made by Miss Justice Laffoy in public statements as head of the commission and in her letter of resignation demand that such a review be transparent.
It is now imperative that the education committee of the Oireachtas hold hearings into the issues surrounding Miss Justice Laffoy's resignation.
It is essential that all involved - Government, victim groups, lawyers, the religious orders - be prepared to work to name and address the issues in a way that is not about finger-pointing and recrimination, that does not become party political, but that seeks to find meaningful ways forward.
If we cannot now address the difficulties which seem to have blighted the work of the commission thus far and attempt to simply apply a sticking plaster to the problem, we may well find ourselves back at this point again in another year or two.
We may find that all we have achieved in addressing one of the gravest abuses of its citizens by this State is to waste tens or hundreds of millions of euro on a process that can neither achieve any meaningful justice for victims nor ensure that those responsible can never again perpetrate such appalling abuse on such an enormous scale.
If Ireland is in fact the mature progressive State that it claims to be, we must be capable of working together in an honest and responsible way to such an end. We must be capable of finding within ourselves the capacity to name our failings, to come out with our hands up and acknowledge that we got it wrong, that we didn't do the best job that we might have.
We must also find within ourselves the ability to hear such acknowledgments without immediately seeking resignations, scoring political points or advancing our own agendas at every opportunity.
This is the challenge faced by us all now, Government, opposition, victim groups, lawyers, church and public alike. If we cannot live up to it, we will have continued to fail those whose suffering led to the establishment of the commission.
We will continue to fail those children, now adults, who have had to live with the impact of years of abuse and abandonment.
Colm O'Gorman is director of One in Four