THE DUBLIN Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) has welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Children Barry Andrews that he is allocating € 15 million towards the implementation of the Ryan report recommendations and a further € 3 million to finance a referendum on children’s rights.The DRCC has also said the “unreserved apology” from the Irish bishops’ conference this week was “not enough”.
DRCC chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop described as very welcome “to see that the Government is putting our children where they rightfully belong, at the top of our responsibility agenda. By allocating € 3 million in 2010 for a referendum on the rights of the child, at last, we will have the opportunity as a nation to vote for enshrining the rights of our children in our Constitution where they rightfully belong”.
She said, “we have been horrified by the levels of abuse our children have suffered in institutions across the State and by the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the church in the Archdiocese of Dublin”.
The DRCC welcomed the announcement of Mr Andrews that further provision was to be made for extra counselling for adult survivors of child abuse, she said.
“The centre’s 24-hour helpline has been inundated with calls from adults whose memories have been triggered by the horrendous revelations of both the Ryan and Murphy reports,” she said.
She said it was “not enough that the bishops will ask what they call the ‘independent’ national board for safeguarding children in the Catholic Church, to explore how policy and practice to safeguard children can be assessed.”
While the board was based in Maynooth under church control it was “not independent”, she said.
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