60,000 children stolen from mothers in Ireland
The speech of President Mary McAleeese, at the University College Cork, Friday 27th January 2006 – A View from 2006.Report in relation to the above mentioned speech and the serious issues as follows:After reading the speech of President Mary McAleese, at the University College Cork,Friday 27th January 2006, in relation to the 90th Anniversary of the 1916 Rising – A View from 2006, her speech referred to Human Rights.We were therefore surprised that President Mary McAleese, did not mention the 60,000 babies stolen then sold in the Republic of Ireland.Between the 1930s and the 1960s an estimated 60,000 newborns were procured under false pretences for married couples that had been turned down as prospective adoptive parents on various grounds.The perpetrators of Baby Trafficking broke the law, forged documents, destroyed evidence, and took babies from young unmarried mothers on the pretext of arranging legal adoptions.Amongst those implicated are priests, nuns, midwives and nurses who were paid to break the law and steal babies from their unmarried mothers, then smuggled them to married couples who brought them up as their own flesh and blood.Large amounts of cash changed hands to ensure the entire illegal episode was hushed up.Adult victims of the Republics Baby Trafficking, some of them shipped to America as babies, faced a conspiracy of silence and a total absence of records when they attempt to discover their true identity.Thousands of adult victims of institutional child abuse including my wife Mary identify themselves as being in the same position.We have recently learnt that details of horrific abuse at St Joseph’s industrial school run by nuns in Connemara are expected to be unveiled in the High Court.It appears a woman in her 60s is suing the Mercy Order, the Archdiocese of Tuam, the State and the Minister for Justice, and the Departments of Education and Health in a personal injuries case which has been in the pipeline for the past seven years.In seeking his costs, Paul O’Higgins, SC. for the State and the Mercy Order, said the action could have gone before the Residential Institutional Redress Board.May we suggest that Paul O’Higgins, SC. read and digest the contents of the Human Rights Committee terms of reference at the Office of the Law Society of Ireland?There are many victims of institutional child abuse who are not afraid to speak out.They have courageously broke their silence and spoke out how they have been systematically ripped off by the legal profession they trusted to represent them before the corrupt Redress Board.Angry victims of institutional child abuse complained to former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey, T.D. in 2003, but he took no action.The corrupt Redress Board rules are also questionable and one would be tempted to believe they were put in place to cover the backsides of the greedy vultures from the law library.It’s quite clear that serious issues have arisen for some time in relation to the corrupt Redress Board.We would like to point out that many victims of institutional child abuse including my wife Mary have been awarded pittance from the corrupt Redress Board.The Redress Board is one of the greatest abuses perpetrated against victims of sexual abuse in religious – run residential institutions, according to a top psychiatrist.Dr. Michael Corry, founder of the institute of Psychosocial Medicine, said the Redress Board stringent secrecy laws are causing huge psychological damage to victims.In a letter to The Irish Times dated 19th May 2005, Dr. Michael Corry, Consultant Psychiatrist, stated his firm believe is that the Redress Board contravenes the most basic of human and civil rights.In short it represents a crime against humanity.It should be abolished immediately and replaced by an open forum where the victim is not only properly monetarily compensated, but where they can have their perpetrators named, and the scales of justice balanced.It’s quite clear that many survivors support groups have received a number of complaints from abuse victims claiming they have received reduced levels of compensation after waiving an initial award by the Redress Board.The Aislin Centre has written to the Redress Board, Judge O’Leary, outlining their concerns over the treatment of survivors.Christine Buckley, Director of the Aislinn Centre, has claimed that a number of victims have complained of their negative experiences before the Redress Board.Colm O’Gorman, Director of One in Four victims support group is currently compiling a detailed dossier of issues that have arisen from the Tom Sweeney case and which will be presented to the Redress Board within the next few months.It’s quite clear that Tom Sweeney spent 22 days on hunger strike after his initial compensation offer of 113,000 euros was cut to 67,000 euros.When the corrupt system of redress for victims of abuse in industrial schools was set up, following Mr. Bertie Aherns, apology spurred on by the legal proceedings issued against the State and the Religious Orders in May 1999, it offered a generous and compassionate approach, a lot of cynical manoeuvring took place with the former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Michael Martin, T.D. moving out of his office to take over as Minister for Health & Children, which allowed the second former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Michael Woods, T.D. to move in, then the Governments former chief legal adviser, Mr. Michael McDowell, Attorney General, moved out of his office to take over as Minister for Justice & Law Reform, then the details of redress were then worked out under their own terms by a corrupt Compensation Advisory Committee, Chaired by Mr. Sean Ryan, in 2001, with Mr.Tom Boland playing a big part as one of its Members, the former Chair Mr. Sean Ryan then moved out of the corrupt Compensation Advisory Committee, to take over as Chair of the corrupt Redress Board in 2002, the second former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Michael Woods, T.D. then moved out of his office, which allowed the third former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey, T.D. to move in, then the former Chair Mr. Sean Ryan moved out of the corrupt Redress Board to Chair of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, after his meeting with the third former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey, T.D. in County Cork, following Honourable, Justice Mary Laffoy’s letter of resignation dated 2nd September 2006. Honourable, Justice Mary Laffoy was right in her resignation and is, in many of institutional child abuse views, the only Honourable member of the original echelon of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.The third former Minister of Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey, T.D. then moved out of his office, which allowed the fourth Minister for Education & Science, Ms. Mary Hanafin, T.D. to move in.The second former Minister of Education & Science, Mr. Michael Woods, T.D. in a statement about the corrupt Compensation Advisory Committees conclusion he said one of the most important observations was that the child injuries were “among the most serious kinds of personal injury known to law.”Survivors “had lost their childhood – much of their adulthood as well.” He also said that because of the complexities of measuring the impact of abuse, the State would obtain its guidelines for the awards from the Irish Courts.It’s quite clear the second former Minister of Education & Science, Mr. Michael Woods, T.D. negotiated at the same time with the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) with a “Secret Deal” to pay only 128 million euros of the total compensation bill, which included a corrupt 10 million euros Education fund which is now in the hands of the fourth Minister for Education & Science, Ms. Mary Hanafin, T.D.Patsy McGarry, a Religious Affairs Correspondent, reported in The Irish Times dated 15th October 2004, that the fourth Minister for Education & Science, Ms. Mary Hanafin, T.D. said Members of the Oieachtaas Committee on Education, have been assured that awards by the Redress Board were in line of the High Court, and that it had an obligation to do this.All is not what it seems.Far worse has been going on behind the closed doors of the corrupt Redress Board, with pitiful awards being made that come no where near the corrupt criteria given by the former Chair Mr. Sean Ryan’s corrupt Compensation Advisory Committee, 2001, or in ministerial statements supporting that criteria, nor does the corrupt Redress Board system of awards meet with the basic principles of natural justice and the requirements for openness in the Convention on Human Rights.There is substantial dissatisfaction among many victims of institutional child abuse that the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the corrupt Redress Board is not fulfilling its role as promised by the Government and its Ministers.The corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Chair Mr. Sean Ryan, has an approach seen by many victims of institutional child abuse who have been attending the hearings as simplistic, benign and unchallenging, its quite clear at the start of the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse hearings it is reported that the Chair Mr. Sean Ryan, while hearing the testimony of the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. and the testimonies of the above mentioned people at their hearings, he did not challenge any of the contradiction of each of their statements while they were still under oath.The key problem facing the Government and many victims of institutional child abuse is that the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, 2001, and the corrupt Redress Board, 2002, which is the creation of government legislation, is simply not giving not giving the results promised by the State.On two critical occasions during the framing and passage of legislation which set up the original Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse – over which Honourable Justice Mary Laffoy presided until her letter of resignation dated 2nd September 2003, the second former Minister for Education & Science, Michael Woods, T.D. claimed the awards made for abuse would parallel the substantial awards made in the High Court.He recommended that the best guidance for the Government should be “by reference to the level of awards made by the Irish Courts for pain and suffering and loss of amenities arising from serious personal injury.”This has simply not happened.By comparison with court awards for sexual abuse, the offers and the handouts from the corrupt Redress Board have been derisory.The State has created a legal process based on secret hearings where neither the public nor the media can discover what is being done.This is an abuse of the European Convention on Human Rights for which Ireland is a signatory.Openness in public hearings is vital for all parties.There are around 14,768 sad army of victims of institutional child abuse including my wife Mary, who have made applications to the corrupt Redress Board by the deadline last December 2005.Their weapon of war is a bleak and complicated “Application Form,” this disgraceful document comes out of the corrupt Redress Act 2002.The aim of a proper Redress Act 2002, which was rubber stamped by President Mary McAleese, is surely to provide a proper mechanism whereby victims of physical and sexual child abuse and the lack of care while in institutions within the State, can make a proper application for redress to compensate them for the abuse they suffered. In order to assist an applicant the third former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey, T.D. stated that a lower threshold of proof is required and the Redress Board will conduct its sittings in a informal manner in order to accommodate the applicant.When a person makes an application to the Redress Board they are required to establish to the Board firstly, their identity, secondly that they were resident in the institution during their childhood and finally that they were injured while so resident and the injury is consistent with the abuse that is alleged to have happened.In the event an applicant is dissatisfied with an award he/she may reject the decision of the Redress Board Committee and pursue the matter through the Courts.According to the third former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Noel Dempsey’s, T.D. conclusion the aim of the Redress Board is to provide victims of institutional abuse with an alternative avenue to pursue their claim.That was the theory.The practice has been entirely different.Depending on the award made by the corrupt Redress Board and /or the corrupt Redress Board Review Committee, claimants would have to give serious consideration to their options to proceed with their High Court Action.If the High Court award a claimant a sum less than or equal to the pittance amount awarded to a claimant by the Redress Board.Apart from the time factor, the claimant may be held responsible for all costs and outlay from the date of the lodgement (the pittance amount awarded to the claimant by the Redress Board) after giving the above mentioned options serious consideration, we do not think any claimant would be stupid enough to instruct their firm of solicitors to follow down the same road in a corrupt process which leaves the claimant to consider the consequences.Its quite clear in part of the redress system itself, as in so many other State approaches to legislative commitments, has been taken from the British Criminal Injuries Compensation Board system.This has broadly the same purpose as the Redress Board, and that is to by–pass litigation, Instead of a back injury or a loss of a finger earning £7,500 or 10,000, it is rape or assault that is measured in hard cash.Although this disgraceful and complicated application form is posited on the idea that an applicant could fill it out on his/her own, the complexities demand assistance from an early point.It’s quite clear that this kind of work of making representations on behalf of claimants before the corrupt Redress Board had been proving lucrative for many law firms.Details of the offending institutions have to be given in the form, and the offences, even down to the point of providing a “number,” given to them in the institution.This, together with grim details of past suffering, all of it called “evidence,” together with medical and psychiatric reports, is made available to “any person and to the representive of any institution in this application.”This represents hugely excessive disclosure.But the punitive situation is far more extensive.Including the claimant taking responsibility for everything stated.It includes agreeing to the corrupt Redress Board requesting “Any person to produce to it any document which may relate to this application.”It goes further.It asks the applicant to make prior judgement to whether he/she will “consider the possibility of settling this application without a hearing,” having on the same page answered comprehensive questions about other proceedings or actions for damages or for criminal investigation.No comparable circumstances are to be found; on the UK Criminal injuries Compensation Boards work on which the corrupt Redress Board is modelled.The corrupt Redress Board is free to call in its own medical advice.It is free to submit documentation to all named parties.And dare one say it, the claimant is already a deeply damaged victim, their lives ruined by illness and continuing medical treatment, and in many victims of institutional child abuse cases they are still attending further education classes long before the corrupt 10 million euros Education Fund was set up which is now in the hands of the fourth Minister for Education & Science, Ms. Mary Hanafin, T.D.We should be dealing here surely with the circumstances where the claimant has been wronged.It is the State and the Religious Orders who are suspected, with wide evidential support already, of having committed the acts complained of.Yet they do not have to fill out any comparable form, they do not have to submit their documentation including all records and documents exchanging between the State and the Religious Orders and Pharmaceutical Companies pertaining to drug trail/tests and proposed drugs trial/tests of children in the care of the said Religious Orders and in particular all records and documents pertaining to the drug trails/tests carried out on my wife Mary, many institutional child abuse victims including my wife Mary face a conspiracy of silence and total absence of records when they attempt to discover their true identity, its quite clear that the State and the Religious Orders do not have to give undertakings about their truthfulness.Do not have to promise not to give false information. Are not required, “to give the corrupt Redress Board full assistance in conduct of this (or any other) application.”The effect is several years of unreasonable delays for many victims of institutional child abuse.We find the demand to end the traditional deference shown to the Catholic Church and a full legally – enforced audit of its finances is necessary.In 2002, investment experts reckon there was more than 2 billion euros swirling around the stock market representing the accumulated wealth of the Religious Orders in Ireland. In addition, the great sell – off of lands by the Religious Orders has also become a billion euros business, as the Religious Orders close Industrial Schools, Boarding Schools, and Convents, and Hospitals and hawk valuable parcels of Land to enthusiastic developers.Yet the second former Minister for Education & Science, Mr. Michael Woods, T.D. who negotiated the controversial “Secret Deal” between the 18 Religious Congregations and the State on victims of institutional child abuse compensation, which between them were responsible for the physical and sexual assault and lack of care of thousands of children over period of many years, will pay only 128 million euros in dribs and drabs stitching up the taxpayers with the remainder of the total compensation bill – itself now expected to reach well over 1 billion euros.Martin Pius Kelly, Tridentine Bishop of Leinster, wants to see numerous of palaces and treasures around the country sold off and the cash handed over to the men and women who have been abused by priests and nuns.He said, “Our Lord lived among the people but the bishops in Ireland have cut themselves off in their palaces and their big cars".“They have lost the common touch.The Church has so much wealth and land in this country it is nothing short of a scam.And they are getting richer all the time, with little old men and women leaving them money in their wills to say masses for them.Well these palaces should be sold off and the money given to these poor unfortunate victims of child abuse.He said, “The stories we are hearing seem to be never ending".I watched the drama series based on the Magdalene Laundries recently and what these poor women had to endure was just shocking.In 2001, the colourful cleric hit the headlines when he claimed he carried out an exorcism on the streets of Carlow saying the town was home to devil worshippers.In 2002, he told the Irish Sunday People that he was planning to stand as an independent Fianna Fail candidate for his home town in the next election.“One of the first things I will do is carryout an exorcism in the Dail"."It’s badly needed,” he said.If you walk into the centre of St Stephens Green, Dublin, there is a park bench dedicated to the Magdalen women.On it is a metal plaque inscribed with the small faceless heads and the words: “To the women who worked in the Magdalen laundry institutions and to the children born to some members of those communities – reflect here upon their lives.”It appears there was not a church collar to be seen at the ceremony to dedicate the park bench to the Magdalen women.Several church representatives had been invited.The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin had been approached to give even a one – line statement.Nothing was forthcoming.The silence surrounding the failure of the State and the Religious Orders to acknowledge their guilt continues.It’s quite clear that the State and the Religious Orders in relation to the corrupt Redress Board and the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse born out of the corrupt Redress Act 2002 are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.When one reads the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee terms of reference at the Office of the Law Society of Ireland it becomes very clear why.It’s also quite clear that the corruption and the malpractice of the Church, politicians and gardai, have all been exposed over recent years.And recently the Irish legal profession is finally exposed as several corrupt solicitors prey on some of society’s most vulnerable victims.It begs the question – is this Government fit to govern us?Does the Irish government have any respect for the Constitution, the basic law of Ireland?The Basics: Under the Constitution, Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland.It is a democracy.The people of Ireland ordained that three organs of state should be set up to protect their democracy: the Oireachtas, the government and the courts.The government is executively responsible for running the country and must give effect to the laws passed by the Oireachtas.The courts (the judges) are obliged to ensure that the constitution is upheld, and the laws respected and justice dispensed.The success or failure of Irish democracy largely depends on the respect the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern; T.D. has for the power between the Oireachtas, the government and the courts.The Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. should know that in the informal game of politics, a politician survives on votes.The government has forgotten the constitution, a legal document for which it must respect.Once elected by the people, a T.D. (member of parliament).As a formally – elected representative of the people, a T.D. is first and foremost a lawmaker in one of the three organs of the state – the parliament).When the parliament makes a law, however, the government is obliged, as necessary to give effect to it.The problem for the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. and the fourth Minister for Education & Science, Ms. Mary Hanafin, T.D. and the former three Ministers of Education and Science, and the Chair Mr. Sean Ryan, of the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the former Chair and present Chair of the corrupt Redress board, is that they are wearing so many different hats they have forgotten the rules of the game.The Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. gave political assurances to thousands of victims of institutional child abuse in religious – run residential institutions.He has not honoured these assurances.A strong argument exists that responsibility and liability for the negligent handling of so many victims of institutional child abuse cases before the corrupt Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the corrupt Redress Board, should rest at the front door of the State and the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) and the European Convention on Human Rights for which Ireland is a signatory.In conclusion it seems, on the evidence given so far, the State appears to have joined the religious orders in flight from human rights and justice and recompense rather in pursuit of it.Will the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. deal with this constitutional crisis in a formal way or will his government, as it seems more likely, continue down the dangerous road of deterring democracy through political spin.Yours sincerely,Email the WriterAlbert King, on behalf of Mary King, (victim of institutional child abuse). 24/2/2006.
