Madam, - With regard to the current furore surrounding the Laffoy Commission, it is important to keep a sense of perspective with regard to the circumstances surrounding this whole subject.
To appreciate the context in which the children's homes operated, we should look at the lack of provision for homeless children in present day Russia, India, some South American countries and AIDS-ravaged sub-Saharan Africa. In order to survive, many of these children have to live on the streets, where they are commonly known as the street children.
Their suffering and deprivation are enormous. Just imagine trying to live on the streets of a Siberian city in the depths of winter, not knowing where the next meal is coming from. With the collapse of the old Soviet union, homeless and hungry children who had been abandoned by their parents, began to appear on the streets, having to fend for themselves and often ending up in prison for petty crimes.
As part of a programme for charitable Church activity, an Orthodox priest-friend of mine runs an orphanage in a country village of Russia for abandoned children. There the State makes an allowance of 11 roubles per day for the support of an individual child, yet it costs 52 roubles per day to keep each one. My friend has to find the balance for his charitable work from other sources - mostly from abroad.
In Calcutta and in India the number of street children is legion and little or no provision is made for most of them. It is not so long since street children in some South American cities were being shot at by police in order to curb their activities. In Africa the plight of parentless families deteriorates with each day that passes.
In Ireland the State assumed responsibility for homeless children and, in the case of Catholic children, entered a partnership with Catholic religious authorities to care for them in their institutions. In some cases private individuals or voluntary organisations funded orphanages for the maintenance of orphaned children. In these homes the children were provided with food, clothing, shelter and education and in general were kept off the streets.
Admittedly all was not perfect in these industrial schools, reformatories and orphanages. State funding was seldom adequate and those who had to make do on the allowances had to resort to considerable penny-pinching, resulting in hardship.
Many of those in authority in these places had little or no training for their demanding role with the children and often had recourse to strong-arm tactics to run these institutions. Those placed in their care were not always the most tractable to deal with, for reasons that are readily understandable. After all, they were in these homes against their wishes, having been deprived of the care of their parents through no fault of their own. It must be remembered too, that in the wider society of the time, children in their own homes and in schools were often victims of what we would now regard as physical abuse. All this is not to excuse the perpetrators of abuse in the institutions but to point out some extenuating circumstances.
That there were physical, emotional and sexual abuses, which must be the subject of regret, cannot be denied, but this is part of the human condition. Yet within the limitations imposed by a penurious State and sometimes less than adequate carers, the hardships suffered by the street children in other countries were avoided. At least they were spared the terrors of the streets when their own parents could not provide for them.
The residential institutions for homeless children were not set up for the carers to abuse children entrusted to them, as some commentators would almost suggest. They were set up by Church and State to avoid the problems of children having the streets as their home if they had not intervened.
Those who would denigrate either the Church or State in this matter should go to present-day Russia or the other countries mentioned and see for themselves before they cast any stones. - Yours, etc.,
Rev GERARD McGREEVY, Smithborough, Co Monaghan.