Sir, - Once more some members of a group of professions are attempting to ease the pain of guilty consciences. There are civil servants, journalists, nuns, brothers and priests who should be wondering about failure and, worse, cowardice.
The Prime Time report on the activities of Irish Christian Brothers in Canada and Australia also aims a piercing searchlight at the Brothers' industrial schools in the Republic. Did bishops and priests suffer from such an acute deafness that they did not hear the smallest scream or the swish of a bit of leather?
I cannot now pass the area inhabited by St Vincent's Orphanage in Glasnevin or the site of Artane's Industrial School without a shudder. The only slim excuse for myself and other journalists is that if we had presented true accounts of the awfulness of at least some Christian Brothers institutions, we would not have been believed. It is only in recent days that the heavy gunfire of clerical interference has lost aim and the shells have lost their powder.
Yet things should be done even now. The hearing into child abuse is being held behind closed doors. This is utterly wrong and we must wonder what influence was used to shut the public out from this inquiry. It would be vastly interesting to read civil service reports on inspections of such places as Artane. As a journalist I will forever feel that I indulged in crass funk not to have pushed for a serious probe into the schools and exposed the terrible deeds of some members of religious orders who hid behind a smokescreen of incense.
Will Prime Time at last flush out the evils inflicted on boys and girls dumped by the State? - Yours, etc.,
Brian Quinn (Editor, Evening Herald, 1969-76), Kincora Grove, Dublin 3.
