Sir, - Prompted by Breda O'Brien's excellent analysis of the Prime Time programmes on the Christian Brothers to which she provided a much-needed sense of balance (Opinion, December 1st), I would like to add a short testimony of my own.
Our family of five boys spent a combined aggregate of over 60 years at Christian Brothers schools and, after our father's premature death, my younger twin brothers, at the age of eight, were sent as boarders for four years to an orphanage run by the Brothers in Glasnevin.
Our collective experiences in three separate institutions were positive and good; in the following years we came to value and appreciate the work of the hard-working and conscientious men who, in the main, provided a basic and decent education for under-privileged boys like us and did so out of limited resources and with little support from anyone, including the State.
Of course there was corporal punishment, some of it excessive but, in my own experience, as likely to come from a lay teacher as from a Brother. Our younger brothers in the orphanage experienced much kindness from the Christian Brothers during their years there.
There was not even one whiff of scandal in any of those institutions - and if there had been, the boys would have been very quick to pick it up.
While it has been obvious for some time that there were rotten apples among the Christian Brothers who carried out evil and dastardly acts on innocent children, I believe the vast majority were dedicated men who devoted their lives to a difficult calling to the best of their abilities.
It is important that this be stated at the present time. - Yours etc.,
Louis Power, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin.