Sir, - Medb Ruane (Opinion, May 31st) may have a point. It may be illogical to confine the extension of the Statute of Limitations Act to sexual abuse. After all, victims may suffer more from major forms of physical abuse than from minor forms of sexual abuse.
But why stop at physical abuse? With equal logic the extension should cover mental, emotional, cultural, spiritual abuse, and so on. Also, it should extend beyond abuse within institutions to abuse within homes, schools, places of work, playing fields and so on. In fact, it should extend to all kinds of abuse, in all kinds of places, at all sorts of times. A Constitutional challenge may gain such a verdict.
In short, is this extension of the Statute of Limitations Act not opening up a Pandora's Box which may keep lawyers, judges, reporters, commentators, victims and defenders so busy for years ahead that other things (including what care workers want to be doing) may suffer? Maybe we should stand back from the brink and reconsider the logic to which Ms Ruane has drawn attention.
In particular, we might consider that that logic may have less to do with victim healing than it has with revenge-taking, particularly at the expense of Catholic clerics. After all, it could be argued that victims may gain more from heeding a saying which is more than 2,000 years old and which, arguably, owes its longevity to what it does for human sanity. I refer to the saying attributed to God: "Revenge is mine. I will pay them back." Perhaps the greatest victims of abuse may be those so damaged spiritually as to have lost trust in God's justice. - Yours, etc.,
Joseph Foyle, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.