Four days ago a man who has at his disposal the free advice of some of the best medical, social and psychological professionals in the State actually admitted that he remains ignorant about the long-term effects of physical abuse on children. In the wake of States of Fear, Dear Daughter, The God Squad, years of talk radio, Oprah Winfrey, and not a few scandals that went public, John O'Donoghue still wonders whether physical abuse could "have the inhibiting effect on the victim long into adult life that is known to occur in many instances of childhood sexual abuse".
The Minister had been changing his uncaring image. Shortly before he spoke to the Dail, an unusual photo had shown him looking tender, an expression not previously associated with his known emotional repertoire.
Perhaps when he famously held a Kosovan child who had been given sanctuary in Kerry, his home county, this pioneer of zero tolerance was touched by the thought of some desperate men released by Serb torturers. Television footage had caught the absolute horror of what only a few weeks of human degradation can do to an adult male - the child's uncle, or cousin, might have been one of them.
If the Minister had any such insights, he kept them to himself, bravely facing the charges of flagrant opportunism that followed, given his record on other refugees. Men cry, children hurt, but whether the two are connected remains to be proven, to his satisfaction.
Because of such ignorance, he proposes to exclude physical abuse from the Labour Party Bill that will extend the Statute of Limitations Act, and free victims older than 21 to sue for damages in the courts. This will effectively ban up to an estimated 75 per cent of claims possible in the wake of recent revelations about child abuse, as well as limiting the potential compensation implications should abuses be uncovered in the areas of juvenile detention centres and care centres for disabled children. All because the Minister is not convinced.
Mr O'Donoghue will take the matter further, however. He will seek expert advice from the Law Reform Commission, a body not known for its special expertise on the human implications of abuse.
There is a disturbing symmetry to Government policy on the matter: the Taoiseach expressed exactly the same view earlier this month.
"There are questions arising from the wide range of activities which at one end of the scale would have been classed as reasonable corporal punishment," he said. He did not say who classed them as reasonable. They were certainly not considered reasonable by abusers, who even at the time insisted that victims keep it secret under threat of worse, or by officials who at the time edited out sections of relevant reports.
Nor did he define the precise nature of that "wide range of activities", as he was invited to do after last year's judgment by the European Court of Human Rights, when a nine-year old boy eventually won damages and costs after English courts had upheld his step-father's right to cane him severely.
To believe what the Minister says, we must believe that he was unaware of the nature and extent of abuse, and is still reeling in shock. Nothing else can explain the moral ambivalence that lies at the heart of his comments.
Experts will tell him that physical abuse over a sustained period can in many cases be more damaging, not less, than random acts of sexual abuse. Everyone else will tell him it is past time to end the conditions within which any act of abuse can be tolerated, or perceived to be so, even in the past.
The Minister sought advice selectively. Administrative and legal experts helped him with amendments that will exclude physical abuse from the Bill.
By implication, he did not take advice from more relevant experts available within his Department and elsewhere in the public service. Nor did he recall the reports available to him on the effects of abuse available from many childcare agencies, or ask himself why he had not got around to releasing those 20-something reports on recent institutional abuses that still escape the public domain.
On the evidence available, the Minister has known at least some facts about the range and extent of alleged abuses in State institutions since before he entered Government. As a solicitor by profession he is aware that corporal punishment was banned in this State as far back as 1981.
That was a "clear-cut" stand, to borrow his words. He may know too that the anti-corporal punishment lobby began in the 1960s and was already vocal a decade before Fine Gael minister John Boland introduced the ban.
So when the Minister thinks aloud about what was viewed in living memory as "reasonable corporal punishment", as he also did four days ago, it is difficult to believe that his primary motivation is a sense of historical perspective or context.
Had the Minister taken the time to find out about how physical abuse scars many people so badly they will blame themselves rather than face their abusers, other sources were available to him. He cannot but be aware that levels of alcoholism, depression and suicide rise sharply for victims of physical abuse. Many professionals outside the public service would have told him for free, had he asked.
Victims themselves will tell him this - if he wants to meet them, or at least reply to the phone calls they have already placed.
Even without those sources, he could, if he wished, research the matter on his lunch-break. A quick five-minute stroll from his offices across St Stephen's Green and down Grafton Street, or into Dawson Street and Nassau Street, he will find a range of advice on various bookshop shelves - popular psychology books filled with information about the consequences of physical abuse in childhood; academic tomes if he prefers; or fiction and memoir from authors like James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, Peter Sheridan, and quite a few others.
Failing that sort of browse, or if he decides on a sunny day to eat his sandwiches on a bench in the Green, all he has to do is open the features pages of any newspaper on any day of the week for some accessible information on physical abuse. He could meet the Taoiseach there, and they could swap pages together.
But for some reason, these sources are not available to either man.
There is no excuse for ignorance about child abuse. Any politician who thinks he will win a vote for keeping our handbags safe while our citizens' experiences remain in question deserves the worst poll he can get.
Someone needs to offer leadership on this issue: by his own admissions, John O'Donoghue is not the right man.