Florence Horsman Hogan - I'm here to protect Nora Wall

[Andrew49]

F.G deputy Charlie Flansgan has brought up allegations against Nora Wall as being due fact Deputy Flanagan Dail Debate. Nora doesn't engage with the mnedia because of the negative impacts of the past. I'm sure my friends amongst you in the media will understand why.

I'm here to protect Nora, she's shackeled by legalistic conundrums. But if you want to ask questions about Nora Wall and her care of 'her children' in Chappaquin, I'm your best bet.The simple reality of the fact is that she was a manager of a Home that was underfunded and underestimated. Nora was at the mainstream of the Managers in the Homes - she brought back the ex residents - the male residents,afterwords caled 'the abusers'. Nora did this on thw suggestion of Mr Grangille, the Inspector of the Homes.

Another story I have to dispell, apparently Nora was so drunk she 'fell over a child in the chrib'. Nora's vertion of that is that she had a child in her care that she adored, but the child was very overweight, and Nora, trying to show the other staff how to lift her, fell over the crib in an effort to lift the child up.

SOURCE for the above quote

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* Sr Callida was an incompetent manager who exhibited a lack of basic management skills including rostering, proper record keeping, communicating with staff and children, consistency and avoiding favouritism. Each of these deficiencies would have represented a serious flaw in a Resident Manager but, taken together, they constituted a disastrous mixture.

* She consumed alcohol in front of the children to excess and she was drunk and incapable on occasion.

* Her behaviour was unpredictable and irrational; she bullied the staff and occasionally beat the children.

* Sr Callida exposed children to additional risk by going away unannounced leaving the children in the charge of junior staff who had no way of contacting her and also by permitting male outsiders to have access to the home and to stay overnight even when she was not there.

* It was wrong for the Resident Manager to have children sleeping in her bedroom and for her and the Sister with whom she was conducting a relationship to take children away for weekends to hotels to stay in ‘family rooms’.

* Congregation witnesses admitted to some knowledge of Sr Callida’s behaviour, but did not feel they could do anything about it, and the situation drifted on over 12 years until it developed into a crisis.

* There was no proper supervision of the Manager.

* The Community did not have the interests of the children as their priority. Any action taken by the Congregation focused exclusively on the Resident Manager. The children were not considered.

* The Health Board neglected its supervisory function in respect of children for whom it was responsible. One of its senior Health Board officials permitted his friendship with the Resident Manager, to cloud his judgment, and he failed to recognise gross failures of management as a result. No proper reviews were carried out by the Board’s social workers.

* The children in Cappoquin were let down and endangered by each of the institutions and agencies in whose care they were placed, by the persons in positions of authority over them, and by persons in supervisory roles. They were fortunate to have care workers who were more dedicated to their tasks and more committed to the interest of the children than their superior

Link And Ryan Report

[corelli]

- - - - - -

* Sr Callida was an incompetent manager who exhibited a lack of basic management skills including rostering, proper record keeping, communicating with staff and children, consistency and avoiding favouritism. Each of these deficiencies would have represented a serious flaw in a Resident Manager but, taken together, they constituted a disastrous mixture.

* She consumed alcohol in front of the children to excess and she was drunk and incapable on occasion.

* Her behaviour was unpredictable and irrational; she bullied the staff and occasionally beat the children.

* Sr Callida exposed children to additional risk by going away unannounced leaving the children in the charge of junior staff who had no way of contacting her and also by permitting male outsiders to have access to the home and to stay overnight even when she was not there.

* It was wrong for the Resident Manager to have children sleeping in her bedroom and for her and the Sister with whom she was conducting a relationship to take children away for weekends to hotels to stay in ‘family rooms’.

* Congregation witnesses admitted to some knowledge of Sr Callida’s behaviour, but did not feel they could do anything about it, and the situation drifted on over 12 years until it developed into a crisis.

* There was no proper supervision of the Manager.

* The Community did not have the interests of the children as their priority. Any action taken by the Congregation focused exclusively on the Resident Manager. The children were not considered.

* The Health Board neglected its supervisory function in respect of children for whom it was responsible. One of its senior Health Board officials permitted his friendship with the Resident Manager, to cloud his judgment, and he failed to recognise gross failures of management as a result. No proper reviews were carried out by the Board’s social workers.

* The children in Cappoquin were let down and endangered by each of the institutions and agencies in whose care they were placed, by the persons in positions of authority over them, and by persons in supervisory roles. They were fortunate to have care workers who were more dedicated to their tasks and more committed to the interest of the children than their superior

Link And Ryan Report

Ms. Horsman Hogans' use of the English language is novel, in the extreme, at any rate.

[Andrew49]

I was sure it was a wind-up because of the, shall we say, unorthodox arrangement of the letters - but as the link is to a site that was frequently used by supporters of the 'known' Religious Orders and Kilbarry1 I presume that Florence (bless her and peace be upon her name) is about to start a new group dedicated to Nora Wall - a good name for this group:> My Buddy Nora .. perhaps ?

[Mar Tweedy]

Thanks Andrew for your painstaking linking to the relevant parts of the Ryan Report, the reputable source on what happened in the residential homes and for making it clear that there is no substance to what the apologists for what went on are claiming.

[Andrew49]

[SIZE=4]5 days before the launch of the Ryan Report[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]
PRESS RELEASE
[/SIZE]

15 May, 2009

Let Our Voices Emerge (L.O.V.E.)

Long awaited Ryan Report will vindicate most Religious Congregations

Let our Voices Emerge welcomes the imminent publication of the Ryan Report. This Report will give us a much better picture of the truth in industrial schools than the outcome of the seriously flawed Redress Board, which is set to cost the Irish taxpayer close to 1.5billion euro. As already had been well established by Judge Kauffman in Canada, after he inquired into a similar scheme – ‘when you put money on the table; truth goes out the window’.

Thankfully the era of industrial schools is well behind us. For many people it is remembered as a harsh difficult time – for others it is remembered with gratitude; it was not up to standard, but it was the best available. Irish Sisters all around the country gave their lives to childcare, they had little support, little money and staffing levels at roughly one twentieth of what we would have today for similar work. And now these people, as a group, have been wrongly vilified for doing their best. Yes mistakes were made, yes some sisters were not suited to the work but most tried extremely hard – and must now feel so let down by individuals and the system.

When we judge past systems and practices by today’s standards we all fail. We had corporal punishment in all schools and virtually all family homes in the industrial school era. And yet when corporal punishment was first mentioned in regard to industrial schools – it seemed as if we all went into contextual amnesia. Why don’t we just face up to the truth; virtually all children in Ireland got the odd a clip in the home and at school up to the 1970’s. And we hear about people not being educated to second level in the industrial schools?. Can we also find out what percentage of Irish children from the lower socio economic groups went to second level in the Ireland of the 40s and 50s – it was not just an industrial school issue.

In November 2003 a group of 130 former inmates of the Irish Industrial Schools banded together to form ‘Let Our Voices Emerge’ (L.O.V.E.), our aim being to highlight what we saw as the miscarriages of justice created by the Government sponsored Residential Institutions Redress Board (RIRB) against those who cared for us in the schools. The present day definition of abuse applied retrospectively up to 60 years ago ensured all who worked in the schools could be termed ‘abusers’ and all who were cared for in the schools could claim abuse. The State funding of 15 shillings per week per child was grossly inadequate for food, clothing and the upkeep of the schools buildings.

We are now made up of carers as well as inmates, and maintain that the RIRB has caused inmates to accuse fellow inmates, some of whom had already suffered extreme abuse themselves. One of our members was proven in the High Courts to have been brutally abused in St Josephs in Kilkenny by a male childcare worker. Now this member is himself under allegation in the RIRB and states there’s no point in trying to defend himself – compensation will still be awarded. This pattern is repeated with many members. Our membership includes inmates in their 70’s, so we possess a broad range of knowledge and claim conditions in the schools when at their worst reflected the poverty in Irish society at the time.

On May 20th next, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse will publish its findings after an investigation lasting 10 years. We would like to point out that only 20% of the RIRB claimants came forward to give evidence in the Commission. The futility of the Commission inquiry running in tandem with the compensation scheme in the cause of justice is obvious.

We are confident that if Judge Ryan has taken the evidence as commensurate with the times, it will prove that the RIRB should never have been established in such generous terms. It has served Irish society, those in the Institutions, and the Religious orders poorly. We refer you to the report of Professor Kaufman in Canada and the House of Commons report in Britain when they went down a similar road. Both found the compensation system to be deeply flawed and a gross injustice to all concerned.

We now state for the record that we are confident the Commission will find the Religious performed far better than the public have been led to believe by some of our more publicly vocal inmates. Why did only 20% of the RIRB claimants offer evidence against their so-called abusers? The Commission is after all, the official investigation, and its judgement vital for all concerned.

Florence Horsman Hogan: Chairperson (L.O.V.E.)

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[SIZE=4]Three days after the publication of the Ryan Report[/SIZE]

The charity ‘Let Our Voices Emerge’ held an AGM last night. While we have always voiced our support for the Religious Congregations through the years, on foot of what we see are unprecedented revelations of records that the Catholic Church covered up and the Leaderships did not reveal to us over the years of our support, while we still stand by the individual managers who were let down by the system,we now withdraw our support of the Religious Congregations.

Through our own experience in the Industrial Schools we came forward in good faith to support the Congregations, we have now discovered our good faith was betrayed.While we still support the individual managers of the schools who struggled against the system. We now call on C.O.R.I. (Conference of Religious Ireland) to revisit their approach to the repayment deal for the R.I.R.B (Residential Institutions Redress Board).

We feel the Catholic Church in Ireland have betrayed not only us, their supporters from the Industrial Schools, but also our fellow inmates. The payments from the R.I.R.B have been decreased from lack of funding. We understand the legal difficulties of the Church increasing it’s payment from the agreed sum on the basis that their responsibility was only as workers in an already evolved system, but we have now discovered that they were guilty of cover up and duplicity in our fellow inmates care.

The Catholic Church holds it’s assets in trust for all of the followers of the Catholic religion. We feel if the Catholic people of Ireland want to make true reparation they should now contact their local bishops and voice their support for the Church increasing the R.I.R.B contribution.

Florence Horsman Hogan.

[Mar Tweedy]

Bit of a difference in the writing styles between the first example of FHH writing and the second as issuing the press release on behalf of 'l.o.v.e' - whats the story there?

Wonder will they be apologising to Christine Buckley for giving her such a hard time on the late late show all those years ago.

[cactusflower]

The Health Board neglected its supervisory function in respect of children for whom it was responsible. One of its senior Health Board officials permitted his friendship with the Resident Manager, to cloud his judgment, and he failed to recognise gross failures of management as a result. No proper reviews were carried out by the Board’s social workers.

This jumps out. Immoral, unprofessional and complicit.