THE wall of officialdom refused to crumble, right up to the very end.Backed by the looming presence of two second row-type gardaí, the woman helping to co-ordinate the launch of yesterday’s report into decades of institutional abuse stood stoney-faced in front of abuse victims demanding to be allowed into the press conference.
She was not for turning.
"By not allowing us in you know we are going to be deeply angry," John Kelly, the co-founder of the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) group told her.
"It is a sham," one of his colleagues chimed in, dressed in a black T-shirt bearing the name of the industrial school he attended in Artane.
The woman’s response was straightforward: "I think we are going to have to call this off."
Call it off. After years of abuse, decades of having your stories dismissed as fantasy or simply ignored, a decade after the commission began its efforts to investigate the scale of that abuse, the day of the launch. Call it off. Not likely.
"We have been marginalised as children and now we have been marginalised again," said John Kelly, his forehead perspiring.
One of his friends blasted: "It’s a disgrace."
Finally the angry scenes of recrimination dissipated and the boxes containing the five volume report were opened to the media; the men’s dignified and strategic retreat had simply added more weight to the full scale of the horrific abuse perpetrated over decades.
One victim who was allowed into the press conference was Paddy Doyle, a former resident of St Michael’s in Cappoquin and author of The God Squad. He listened to Commission chairman Mr Justice Sean Ryan and noted one omission in the chairman’s words of thanks.
"In his comments the Judge thanked everybody, he thanked his staff, he thanked [his predecessor] Ms Justice Laffoy, but he never said a word about the victims of the abuse," Paddy said.
"I copped it straight away."
In a nearby room One In Four had held its own press conference regarding the report. The organisation’s executive director Maeve Lewis said the refusal to allow the victims into the press conference had made her feel "physically sick", while Ellen O’Malley Dunlop of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said the incident had "re-traumatised" the victims.
One of those victims later jabbed his finger in Ms Lewis’s direction and claimed he had gone to One In Four in the past for help, and hadn’t received it.
The general tenor of a day will long stand as a testament to the tragic mistakes and evil practices of the past.
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