Gardaí contacted by 32 more people over abuse at Spiritan-run schools, Dáil told

Minister for Education Norma Foley will bring proposals to Government shortly about the “final shape” of any formal response to the allegations of abuse at Spiritan-run Blackrock College and other private schools.

Ms Foley also said 32 people had contacted gardaí about historical abuse at six schools run by the former Holy Ghost Fathers since the broadcast of the RTÉ documentary “Blackrock Boys” almost three weeks ago.

She said 27 of the contacts were from survivors, three from witnesses and two from people acting on behalf of survivors.

The Minister said the reports relate to alleged incidents dating from 1954 until 1991 at the schools – Blackrock College, Willow Park, Rockwell College, St Mary’s College, St Michael’s College and Templeogue College.

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Ms Foley was speaking during a debate on the revelations of abuse since the documentary was broadcast. Some 78 Spiritans have been accused of abuse. The Minister said “my urgent priority in recent days was to listen to survivors and this will also be the case in the coming days”.

Acknowledging the calls for an inquiry into the abuse at private schools, she said “we need to consider in broad terms the response of the order in terms of restorative justice, the provision of supports, how complainants are treated and supported, and whether standards are being met in terms of accountability within the order.

“Further discussion and engagement will take place with survivors, the Government and the Opposition, child welfare experts and others to determine the final shape of any proposals. I will return shortly to the Government with proposals in this respect.”

Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman commended all those who had come forward and said “it takes incredible bravery for people” to go public, which encourages others “because once one person comes forward, it makes it a tiny bit easier for the next person to do so”. He said that “significant improvements” had been made in child safeguarding but they could not be complacent and it was “everyone’s responsibility to protect children and young people”.

Sinn Féin education spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said the trauma of the abuse of young boys “spilled into the rest of their lives and relationships” and the “monsters who inflicted this abuse derailed the lives of some”.

His party colleague Réada Cronin said the debate was about certain institutions but “if the number of people who have been sexually abused is one in four, then there are at least 40 survivors in this Dáil, 15 in the Seanad and at least 200 among the Oireachtas staff and media who work in Leinster House. Child sexual abuse is a disgusting and abhorrent thing but is not a rare thing by any measure.”

Labour leader Ivana Bacik said 17 reports on child abuse have been produced since 1993. She said statutory inquiries can be protracted and lengthy, “but they come with significant powers of compellability”. Some such inquiries, including the Dublin and Cloyne reports, were carried out much more swiftly. “While a non-statutory inquiry may have weaker powers, those powers may not be needed where an order or institution is fully co-operative.”

Her party colleague Ged Nash said the victims of sexual abuse by former surgeon Michael Shine were still waiting for justice 12 years after revelations emerged and this needed to be investigated in a formal, survivor-led commission of investigation.

Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said a strong scoping exercise and a strengthening of a confidential committee within an inquiry model might “help give much greater weight to the stories told by the survivors than was the case in previous inquest models”.

Social Democrats joint leader Catherine Murphy warned that Child and Family Agency Tusla did not have the capacity to deal with many of these historical cases. “If we are going to do this, we need to provide the capacity and resources to deal with it in a comprehensive and timely manner when people make complaints.”