Christopher O’Driscoll was seventeen. The HSE knew about him since he was ten. Since then, he had been in and out of care facilities, an when they were full, bed and breakfasts, or hotels. On May Day weekend last year, …
Tag Archive: child abuse
Apr
12
Cranberry sauce
Have a look around, and you’ll find plenty of calls to jail senior catholic churchmen for their roles in obstructing the course of justice. There’s even been a misreported story that Richard Dawkins wants to arrest the pope. In that …
Mar
19
Open the books
A Garda who investigated one of the most notorious clerical child abusers in Ireland has called on the Catholic church to “open its books” about child sexual abuse. Retired Garda Martin Ridge was a key player in the investigation which …
Dec
10
Moving On
There’s a report in the Donegal News of an interview with Philip Boyce, bishop of Raphoe, regarding the fallout from the Murphy report. It’s worth looking at what he says. Boyce described the report as “shameful, horrific and beggars belief, …
Nov
27
Priorities
Yesterday, the government published the Murphy report, the results of an investigation into the sexual abuse of children in the Dublin diocese, and how complaints were handled. This is not the first such report. The Ferns Inquiry was published in …
May
27
Full Disclosure
The redress board worked upstairs, and I worked downstairs at the tribunal. Sometimes, I’d meet a survivor as I took a cigarette break. They’d tell me what was going on upstairs was unbelievable. I’d tell them that as much as …
Jun
11
Who Pays The Piper
I was educated by the State. The State paid for to build the schools I was taught in, designed the curriculum, paid my teachers’ salaries. But the first school I went to wasn’t a State school. It was owned and …