Principals of schools in report to discuss findings with parents
Principals in some of the 308 schools identified in the Scoping Inquiry as places where abuse took place will discuss the findings with staff and parents, it has emerged.
Deirdre Matthews is general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB) and Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools (AMCSS), which represents the interests of over 400 voluntary secondary schools in Ireland.
She told the Irish Independent that principals were “deeply shocked” by the findings.
“There is a deep sense of sadness at school level and the ripple is reverberating through the whole system, from principals, boards of management, staff to parents,” she said.
John Barry, president of AMCSS, said in a statement that the association is “deeply saddened by the scale and nature of the abuse disclosed in the report”.
He expressed gratitude to survivors who came forward with their stories “at huge pain to themselves”.
Separately, the Catholic Education Partnership (CEP) said the Scoping Inquiry has “again laid bare the criminal treatment of children and young people”.
It said this happened “in what was a gravely dysfunctional and abusive education system with respect to child safeguarding”.
Speaking on behalf of the entire Catholic education community across the country, the CEP acknowledged the significance of the report.
It also acknowledged the grave harm caused to survivors and their families, as well as those who suffered but are no longer alive.
“It is painfully clear that children and the trust of their families were betrayed in the most devastating of ways,” the CEP stated.
It pledged that the Catholic education sector would fully co-operate with the commission of inquiry when the Government publishes its terms of reference.
Ms Matthews of JMB/AMCSS said the statutory inquiry should be extended to all schools. Catholic diocesan schools and Protestant schools, which are members of JMB/AMCSS, were not included in the Scoping Inquiry. She explained that just because a school is not on the list of 308 schools does not mean no abuse happened there. A number of schools were not included in the initial inquiry carried out by Mary O’Toole.
In a statement yesterday, Bishop Kevin Doran said that while the report related specifically to religious-run schools, “it would be naive in the extreme to suggest that child abuse was not also a reality in other schools, whether Catholic or any other tradition”.
“Sadly, sexual abuse has been endemic in our society,” Bishop Doran said.
The “tragedy” of the report, he said, was not simply that there were so many victims of abuse, “but that so many of them had to carry their experience alone for so many years, before they felt sufficiently free to tell someone else”.