Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

The matters being discussed today are without doubt the most harrowing and distressing that we have ever addressed. In speaking today I am extremely conscious of the victims of child sexual abuse and the fact that their words and stories communicate far better than I ever could the enormity of the violence and violation visited upon many of the children of this country over the years. Nonetheless I recognise that, as a Deputy, I have a responsibility to my constituents to speak on this motion. I am conscious of those who suffered at the hands of a small coterie of paedophile teachers in Laois-Offaly. I have met some of these people and I take this opportunity to commend them on their strength of spirit, courage and refusal to give up their fight for justice in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles.

We have reached a critical juncture in the governance of this State. It is now clear that as a country we grossly let down and neglected the most vulnerable. When these victims bravely came forward to tell their stories they were generally ignored or dismissed for many years. One of the most tragic aspects of the Ryan report and the litany of horrendous abuse it documents is that when these matters were brought to the attention of senior civil servants, the complaints which took so much courage to make were passed around from one section to another with a coldness and indifference that is staggering in the context of the nature of the complaint. Chapter 14 of the report, which documents years of sustained sexual abuse of young boys and the violent punishment of young boys and girls in schools in Laois-Offaly and other locations, reveals that when a brave victim sought to inform the Department of Education that a known paedophile remained on its payroll, his complaint was passed around like an unwanted gift and dismissed in turn by each official. This was the critical time at which the State and its servants, which had failed these children so monumentally, could have shown a modicum of compassion but once again the door was slammed in the victims' faces. I wholeheartedly support the widespread view that the perpetrators of the events described in the Ryan report should face criminal prosecutions. However, questions remain to be answered about the actions of the senior officials in the Department who were aware of the complaints but passed the buck or looked the other way. These Pontius Pilates also have a case to answer.

The strange attitude which the State has historically taken towards those who have suffered in its schools and other institutions persists to this day. Louise O'Keeffe, who was sexually abused by her national school principal in Cork in the 1970s, was recently pursued for costs by the State following an unsuccessful attempt to sue it on the basis of vicarious liability. It took the Supreme Court to show some humanity by refusing to award costs to the State. This vicious attitude on the part of the Government - a Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science is sitting opposite - leads it to pursue victims of child sex abuse in the courts and fight to the bitter end the beleaguered parents of autistic children who are fighting for their children's education. Moreover, it is wholly inconsistent with the attitude the State has taken in regard to religious congregations. Why was the State happy to pick up the tab for the religious congregations following a series of cosy chats between the former Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, his Secretary General and the representatives of the orders? When it was an almost universal view among experts that a 50:50 arrangement on indemnity would be a good deal for the religious orders, the then Minister and his Secretary General, Mr. Dennehy, agreed to pay what will amount to 90% of the costs. However, when a victim attempts to find justice in the court, the State throws the kitchen sink to win the case and crush the plaintiff. Similarly, a bank need only ask and the State coffers are opened. Compare this to the attitude taken towards abuse victims.

The State has found a convenient legal loophole regarding the management of primary schools. It has argued, and regrettably the courts have agreed, that primary schools are managed by boards of management. The Supreme Court judgment in the Louise O'Keeffe case supported the State's view that it could not be held vicariously liable for the actions of primary school employees and thus owed no duty of care to victims of paedophile teachers. Conveniently, boards of management are mainly voluntary. They have scant resources and spend a lot of time simply trying to keep the show on the road. In the meantime, the Department of Education and Science has the privilege of power without responsibility. It decides on teaching standards and the curriculum. It issues circulars laying down the law about almost every aspect of school life but when a victim such as Louise O'Keeffe appears it runs a mile and claims that the board of management is in charge. This strange arrangement is, in my view, neither moral nor sustainable. Even the Government Chief Whip, Deputy Pat Carey, referred to it recently as a cop out.

I recognise that religious congregations have done a great deal for the people of Ireland over the years but this does not mean their members have more rights than other citizens. It does not make criminals who cloak themselves in a religious mantle immune to justice nor does it sweep aside the rights of victims. It does not mean that the State should roll over for religious orders while pursuing victims like Louise O'Keeffe in the courts. There is a schizophrenia in this contradictory approach which must be addressed by this House. The State must be seen to be on the side of the citizen. However, there is little evidence that the State is truly on the side of citizens or even victims. Fundamental change is needed in the attitude of all relevant players, namely, the Government, civil servants, political servants and politicians, towards the people of this State and the individuals who have suffered such injustice.

Lip-service and window dressing are not enough. We must move away from the traditional notion that allegations are easy to make and difficult to prove or that those who complain are troublemakers. Such attitudes are relics of an old Ireland where voiceless children were beaten and abused by those thought to have been above reproach while the rest of the nation, its Government and citizenry turned a blind eye.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a particular interest in Chapter 14 of the Ryan report which refers to an individual who visited a reign of terror upon children in his care over a 40 year period; "John Brander" is the name he is given in the report. This depraved paedophile left the Christian Brothers at the request of his superiors in the 1950s following at least three complaints of sexual abuse of young boys. As the Ryan report points out, "by this means, Br Brander was able to leave the Congregation apparently of his own volition and with an unblemished teaching record". This reprehensible individual moved from school to school, including several in my own constituency, terrorising children, sexually abusing boys and beating the small children of both genders in his care to a vicious and depraved degree. All the while, he sycophantically buttered up his colleagues, superiors and neighbours. He cultivated power in the local community. After a reign of terror in a school, he would eventually move when the tide of complaints by the parents became too much and he would always be given a glowing reference despite the litany of complaints and a number of investigations.

It took until the 1990s before this man was prosecuted. For 40 years he did as he pleased in school after school throughout the midlands. Investigations have shown that the bulk of the abuse perpetrated in general was not known to the Department of Education and Science. However, the case of John Brander was brought to the attention of the Department as early as 1965 and again in the early 1980s when one of his victims made sustained attempts to alert officials at the Department to the danger this man posed to children.

The Ryan report documents a complaint made by the mother of a child in Rath national school, Ballybrittas, in 1965 where she drew attention to excessive use of corporal punishment including beatings around the head sustained by her young children. This enlightened woman also included the name and address of the local doctor. Her complaint was forwarded to the parish priest and a request was made for a written report from Mr. Brander on the matter. The parish priest replied with a staunch defence of Mr. Brander whose own report on the matter was so condescending that this alone should have set alarm bells ringing in the Department. He referred to the fact that the mother would be interested in the punishment meted out to her children as "typical of the atmosphere of that house" and claims that bruises were the likely result of vigorous football. Nonetheless the Department sent an inspector to the school and in what smacks of an old boys' network the inspector concluded that the complaint should not be taken seriously despite an acknowledgement by Mr. Brander that he was hot-tempered and the Department's own guidelines which directed that corporal punishment should only be administered for a "grave transgression".

Mr. Brander worked for two years in Rath before continuing the abuse of young children at Walsh Island school in County Offaly. In that school severe physical and sexual abuse was a daily occurrence for the pupils for more than three years. Eventually some parents approached the Garda, much to the consternation of the parish priest who indicated that he would have preferred to deal with the matter quietly himself; that is, one assumes, in the manner in which all other complaints about Mr. Brander had been dealt with.

A victim of Mr. Brander identified in the report as "Mr. Rothe" contacted the Department in the early 1980s. Initially he briefed an acquaintance who was a Department national school inspector about his concerns. The inspector took no action. Despite concern that complaining would adversely affect his own position, the victim took the brave step of writing formally to the Department warning them that Mr. Brander, who was at that time teaching in Tullamore, was a danger to young children. This letter was passed from Billy to Jack in the Department of Education and Science with nobody willing to follow up on its serious content.

Departmental memoranda from various officials referred in strangely detached terms to Mr. Brander's status as a recognised teacher and examined the issue from a salary aspect. However, it noted, "Presumably Primary Branch have a file about the alleged misbehaviour in a primary school on this teacher's part." A later memorandum quoted in the Ryan report stated that there was not much point in proceeding with the matter and ended by questioning whether it was correct to rake up the past. Noting that the inspection reports relating to Brander were positive, Department officials again decided to take no action. The exchange of memoranda by Department officials at this juncture is shameful. The pass the parcel and turn a blind eye attitude that has been so well documented with regard to the Catholic church was also endemic in the Department of Education and Science. Those involved bear a heavy burden on their consciences.

The bizarre disappearance of letters from the file and the reappearance of information relating to Mr. Brander is a matter about which I am extremely concerned. In 1997, the Department of Education and Science informed the Garda that no complaints had been made about Brander when he was there. A spokesman for the Department told the media that there was no record of any complaint against Brander. I knew this was untrue and sought an Adjournment debate here ten years ago and wrote to the then Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, in respect of the matter. This led the Minister to admit rather belatedly that a complaint did exist. He cited a mistake by the civil servant in question as the reason the complaint of Mr. Rothe was not identified in the initial response to my Dáil Adjournment matter in 1998. There was no mention of the complaint made by the Rath mother in the 1960s. That never appeared until the Ryan report was published.

Who in the Department of Education and Science was removing information from the files of alleged paedophiles? How did this information miraculously reappear at the bitter end? This is very serious and sinister and I want answers from the Minister for Education and Science on how this could happen and what investigation was carried out to identify how this information could disappear and reappear without explanation and how this House could be misled. This did not happen in the 1950 and 1960s; it happened when I was a Member of this House. I raised the matter with the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Micheál Martin, and spoke to the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, personally about the issue. The victims of Mr. Brander are looking for answers about what happened to these complaints and that is the very least they are owed at this point in time.

The victims of Mr. Brander are included in the report yet they are excluded from the redress scheme. The litany of abuse detailed in Chapter 14 highlights how wrong it is to ignore those who suffered abuse in primary schools who were not in full-time residential care. The State cannot persist in washing its hands of responsibility for the abuse that was perpetrated by teachers on its payroll. The approach to victims of abuse in primary schools must be changed and we need legislative change in this area to close the legal loophole that is allowing the Department of Education and Science to shirk its responsibilities on a daily basis.

In the few minutes available to me I have concentrated on the Brander issue but as Deputy Shatter mentioned, the children of this country are owed more than a Dáil debate and hand wringing by the powers that be. If the Government truly cares about child welfare and is truly sorry for the crimes perpetrated against vulnerable children in the past it will take concrete steps now to save today's children from a fate of neglect and abuse. Today in my constituency there are 30 foster children with no care plan or assistance. I commend the bravery of abuse victims who have told their stories. Our thoughts are with them but that is not sufficient because our thoughts should inform policy and decision-making for the children of this nation now and in the future.

See this speech in context