Sir, – Exposing the truth with regard to wrongdoing often imposes costs on the whistleblower and can be dangerous. The other side of the coin is that staying silent and failing to expose wrongdoing allows the wrongdoing to continue and may put many others in danger. The child abuse scandals in Ireland continued for so long because many people who knew about these abuses remained silent. The recent exposure of widespread sexual abuse of women is to be welcomed, but we must also condemn the failures by far too many to expose the abusers. This criticism applies especially to men, because women who were abused were usually in a position of disempowerment. Many women have also been killed by their abusers and the failure to expose these abusers has been a factor in these murders. During the beef tribunal scandal in the 1990s, the only person prosecuted was the journalist Susan O’Keefe, who exposed this scandal.
The appalling murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is a reminder of the ultimate price that some whistleblowers have to pay for exposing very serious corruption and abuses of power. Veronica Guerin suffered a similar appalling fate in Ireland. Those of us who become aware of abuses of power must be prepared for the reality that exposing these abuses will likely have costs for us, and we must expose these abuses regardless of these costs, otherwise far greater costs will be inflicted on others by our silence. – Yours, etc,
EDWARD HORGAN,
Castletroy,
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Limerick.