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THE MEDIA has been criticised for being “clearly not objective” in coverage of the Ryan report on child abuse and of being “not at all interested” in the religious congregations’ side of the story. The criticisms, made and reported by author, commentator and Redemptorist priest, Fr Tony Flannery, appear in his introduction to the book Responding to the Ryan Report (Columba), which he edited. He writes that, on publication of the Ryan report: “I found myself getting more and more irritated by the majority of the media coverage . . . Too many of the regular media commentators were clearly not objective, but rather had obvious agendas of their own.”
Media Not Objective On Reporting Of Ryan Report
The Congregation [of the Christian Brothers] facilitated this man’s immediate departure for England so as to avoid a ‘great danger of a public prosecution’. The Brothers did not inform the parents about the abuse of the boy who had been abused. The Congregation put self-interest in avoiding adverse publicity before their duty to the boys in their care and to their parents.
- This Brother in the 1960s was in a position to perpetrate serious and repeated sexual abuse of a boy over an 18-month period.
- The boy was, by his own evidence and by the evidence of Fr Moore, too afraid to report it himself to the Superior, which contradicts the Congregation’s assertion that there was no difficulty about boys who were sexually abused going to the authorities in Artane with complaints.
- Br Adrien was removed from Letterfrack, where it was ‘positively dangerous’ to have him looking after boys. The implication is clear that he sexually abused boys there.
- Transferring him to a residential school for deaf boys knowingly endangered a large new group of children.
- His behaviour in Artane could not have come as a surprise to the authorities.
- This case demonstrates indifference by the Congregation to the protection of children from a sexual predator. It is evidence of a policy of avoiding the disclosure of abuse rather than dealing with it.
The Resident Manager was inconsistent in the information he gave to the Department, indicating a lack of respect for the Government officials who raised the matter with him. Sexual abuse by Brothers was a chronic problem in Artane. Brothers who served in Artane included firstly those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys, secondly those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in Artane and, thirdly some who were subsequently revealed to have abused boys. A timeline of the documented and admitted cases of sexual abuse shows that:(a)For more than half of the 33 years under consideration, there was at least one such abuser working there;
(b)For more than one third of the years there were at least two abusers present;
(c)During one year in the 1940s there were seven such Brothers in Artane at the same time.More abuse occurred than is recorded in documents because of inadequate recording and reporting procedures.All the above quotes are NOT from the media but from the Ryan Report! Maybe this priest should read the Ryan Report instead of media reports on the said Report!The sodality was a means of informal communication between boys and the Resident Manager that uncovered four sexual abusers in Artane in 1944, but it was discontinued. Because boys could be punished for complaining about abuse, there was inevitably under-reporting. In the 1960s, the Resident Manager gave instructions that complaints were to be made directly to him and not to the chaplain, thereby cutting off a channel of information. One offender, Br Dennis, admitted sexually abusing many boys in Artane, but only one of his victims gave evidence at the Phase II oral hearings.
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Sorry for slight diversion but that was too good not to share.
Originally Posted by dot
