Madam, – With regard to the list of allegations of abuse on our elders, your Editorial (June 9th) asks “Is this our New Ireland?”.
Report after report that has emerged on how we deal with citizens who are vulnerable in this society shows clearly that abuse of such citizens is a norm.
How is it that in this country, 40 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men experience some form of sexual abuse during lives (SAVI report 2002)? How is it that 1 in 7 women have experienced severe abusive behaviour of a physical, sexual or emotional nature from a partner at some times in their lives (National Crime Council and ERSI, 2005)?
How is that 7.5 per cent of men under the age of 30 will be exposed to domestic violence (Watson Parsons, 2005)? Abuse of our elders is considered to affect between 3 and 5 per cent of the elderly population which means that somewhere between 14,000-23,000 of us educated, modern, caring Irish citizens can expect to end up in future inquiries like that which underpins the current Rostrevor investigations.
Our past is loaded with abuse history, our present has become a conduit for divulging ongoing abuses and with such a background, it most certainly looks as if our future is mapped in a similar fashion.
It is time for a society to rethink its value system and step out into the open about how we think and behave about citizen vulnerability. – Yours, etc,