In 2006 General Chiropractic Council chairman Peter Dixon accused me of comparing chief executive Margaret Coats to a paedophile priest and repeated the accusation in a letter to council members, while I was a council member. What I had done was compare Margaret Coats efforts to cover up the misdeeds of her deputy Greg Price to efforts made by the catholic church in Ireland to protect their own.
Todays Irish Times states; FOUR SUCCESSIVE archbishops of Dublin responded to clerical child sexual abuse over a 30-year period in their diocese with “denial, arrogance and cover-up”. This is one of the main conclusions of the report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.
The three-year inquiry, led by Judge Yvonne Murphy, found the “structures and rules” of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover-up.
“The State authorities facilitated the cover up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes,”
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, who published the report yesterday, said it documented “a scandal on an astonishing scale”
I have no doubt at some time in the future a politician will be making similar statements about the GCC and possibly other health regulators.
As the dept of the scandal is finally revealed, I was reminded of peoples horror when I wrote the letter below to Members of Gormanston Colleges Past Pupils Union (PPU). When I attended Gormanston College 1969/74, it was one of the best schools in Ireland and the PPU did not want the Schools dirty secrets in the public domain ( where have we heard that before). The PPU would not act on behave of victims of these priests, I took the view they were wrong. I set up a discussion forum www.gormanston.net ( which was recently hacked into and all the posts deleted) and started writing letters to journalists. The priests suspended sentence was overturned and he was given a custodial sentence, which gave some closure to the victims.
Guess what? It turns out Fr Ronald Bennett was just the tip of the iceberg. Those who often ask where do I get the energy or why keep going after the GCC management? Days like today make it worth while, incompetent management must be held to account, bankers, ministers who sent young boys to Iraq under the pretence of WMDs, etc etc. I remember sitting in a large study hall and we would hiss when “Ronnies boys” were called out of study to be abused. I was eleven and that was the last time I sat by and did nothing when colleagues were abused or bullied.
The letter below was typical of the type of letter I started writing when people would not listen. One thing you can be certain of, I will not stop until Dixon, and Coats are no longer regulating chiropractors and I can decide whether I want to go back on the chiropractic register.
To the officers of the Gormanston Past Pupils Union. August 2006
Like many past pupils that I have been in contact with recently we are outraged by the decision of Judge Desmond Hogan to give Fr Ronald Bennett OFM a suspended sentence for sexually abusing boys in Gormanston. However what is even more galling to us is the apparent lack of effort from the Past Pupils Union to support these boys, in fact there are some of us who have the distinct impression that the PPU may have colluded with the Gormanston authorities to keep this scandal quiet and marginalise the people who made or considered making complaints,
Judge Hogan stated that Bennett’s “early” guilty plea was seen as a mitigating feature in reaching the judgement, without mentioning it took Bennett seven years to admit his guilt. Initially there were 12 boys making complaints about Bennett, but the Franciscans and their lawyers dragged it out for so long, that by the time the case came to court, eight boys simply gave up such was the pain involved. This makes a mockery of the claim by Fr Caoimhin O Laoide OFM that “we acknowledge the hurt caused and our concern is for the injured parties” he added that the “Franciscans had an open door policy and any former pupil could contact them at any time”. Well I contacted them through the PPU a number of times and all I got from Robin O Sullivan was that I had not paid my membership dues. Like the abused boys, I did my time in Gormanston which makes me a member of the PPU, even if its not the pupils Robin et al would like as members.
Judge Hogan said the offences happened 20 years ago and there had been no recurrence since. Can he be sure there were no recurrence, when nobody at Gormanston has tried to find out if there was, did the judge know the abuse started well before 1974. Bearing in mind Fr Patrick McSweeney was informed of the abuse in 1973 and did nothing to stop it, resulting in many other boys being abused, why should anyone now believe that “there are now robust procedures in place” to prevent abuse when all it needed was for Bennett to send a boy into the sports shop to try on a jock strap, so he could use his hands to see if it fitted snugly. What efforts if any have Gormanston or the Past Pupils Union made to find out how many boys were abused, whether the abuse did stop in 1981 as claimed and if any other priests were involved in the abuse.
By not making a statement or answering the questions of other past pupils, I assume the past pupils union are happy with a suspended sentence despite the fact one of the many offences committed by Bennett was to ejaculate in the face of a twelve year old boy, no doubt their outrage may have been muted by the fact it was not their own child that had been abused. As Colom O Gorman director of “One in Four” stated after the case. It is difficult to understand how a custodial sentence could be avoided. The passage of time doesn’t minimise the heinous nature of sexual assault on a child. Shame on the members of the PPU who have no comment to make on this disgusting act and seem more intent on protecting the reputation of their Alma Mater than helping the victims.
Benett said that it was only after reading of the damage caused by this activity in the 80s he became remorseful. This begs the question what on earth did the Principle Fr Pat McSweeney say to Ronnie? Fr McSweeny gave parents assurances that Bennett would no longer be allowed to be alone with boys. Did he not tell Bennett this activity was wrong and would harm the pupils, or simply told to stay away from that particular boy. Have the PPU nothing to say on any of this. Or is their silence tacit support for the sentence and the abuse that was perpetrated on Gormanston Pupils over many years.
The PPU can continue to ignore me and my questions. You may prefer to let us to draw our own conclusions. You can accept collective responsibility for the role of the PPU or can respond. This letter will be sent out as a press release to the media on the first of September
Yours sincerely
Dr Richard Lanigan
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