Chapter 15 — Daingean

Sexual abuse

He was then asked if it had happened again: Oh yeah, masturbating about five or six times after that. He would give me brylcreme, sweets, toothpaste, toothbrushes and things like that ... where I was working in the kitchen. He started groping me again and then I gave in, I masturbated him about probably four to six times.

He was asked why he had not told the Gardaí about this abuse when making a statement to them, or why it had not been included in the statement made for his solicitor. He replied, ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone. I felt like I was giving something for something’. He said he felt like ‘A rent person’.

Various inconsistencies were pointed out, such as the fact that Br Ramon did not have duties in the bakery. However, the witness was adamant he had not got the identification of the person wrong, and said that Br Ramon was often in the bakery. The Congregation made no reference to Br Ramon’s conviction, and treated the witness with incredulity and disbelief.

Another witness told the Committee that, although he personally had no experiences of a sexual nature with Br Ramon, he recalled that the Brother had a nickname ‘Br. Sexpert Ramon’.

Another witness told the Committee, ‘There was five or six Brothers that did abuse kids’, and he named Br Ramon as one of these: ‘Br. Ramon was an evil man’. He added, ‘There were other good Brothers there, they weren’t all paedophiles’.

He was then questioned about his allegations. He insisted, ‘Br. Ramon tried to abuse me. I took the beatings rather than let them abuse me ... He got a hold of you and he groped you. I never let him go all the way with me, if you know what I mean’. Under cross-examination he added: You would be in a room and he grab you by the private parts and pull you into it and he tried to grope you ... I would knock him away and take a slap.

The cross-examination ended with a simple statement: I don’t have any more questions. I should just point out, as I have done, that the Brothers concerned are dead. Br. Ramon is long time dead ...

One complainant was asked whether he or anybody else had been shown kindness or fairness. He replied that he had never received any kindness, but identified the boys who worked for Br Ramon in the laundry as receiving special treatment: Maybe to one or two of the people that was working in the laundry. Br. Ramon was over the laundry and if you said anything to any of the boys that worked in the laundry Br. Ramon would give you a hiding for it because he didn’t like his boys to be abused or given out.

In circumstances where a Brother had such long service in Daingean, his conviction for sexual abuse was a relevant piece of information that should have been revealed to the complainants who made allegations against him. The allegation made in 1967 – the O’Brien25 case

On 20th June 1967, a firm of solicitors acting on behalf of a former pupil of Daingean wrote to the Secretary of the Department of Justice about a matter that had caused them deep concern. A 15-year-old boy had recently been discharged from Daingean after being in the Institution for over two years. They were writing, they explained, ‘as Officers of the Court and indeed as responsible citizens to bring immediately to the notice of the Department’ a serious allegation of sexual misconduct. They wrote: We are instructed and we have no reason to doubt our instructions that this boy, who was mentally retarded when sent to Daingean, was sexually assaulted and perverted while an in-mate of the Reformatory and his unfortunate lapse into criminality immediately on his release is due solely to what occurred while he was there. We feel that the best course for us to adopt in this case is to have the boy medically examined by a competent psychiatrist who can elicit from him the full circumstances of his perversion and we feel that the Department might like to have him examined by their own medical advisor in view of the circumstances.

The alleged abuser was not named in the letter, although it is now known that it was Br Ramon. It seems that this letter was forwarded to the Department of Education, because the next letter on file is a letter of 14th December 1967, written by the solicitors acting for the Resident Manager of Daingean, Fr Luca. It was addressed to the Secretary of the Department of Education. It stated: We understand that a firm of Solicitors, acting on behalf of ... a former detainee at Daingean, wrote to you making serious allegations concerning occurrences in the School involving a member of the staff ... We are writing to advise you that following the allegations our client, The Reverend Superior, investigated the allegation and it was also investigated, with the full co-operation of our client, by the Garda Authorities. Following their enquiries the Garda Authorities were satisfied that there was no evidence of any improper conduct by any member of the Staff ... In view of the serious allegation made in the letter to your Department based on the story of this unfortunate boy our client wishes this unequivocable denial of the allegations placed on your file.

Again, the name of the member of staff against whom the allegations were made was not disclosed and no record was kept of any action taken.

The boy who made the allegations appeared in court and pleaded guilty. The Central Criminal Court imposed a suspended sentence of 12 months, expressing its dismay that there was no in-patient unit available for the treatment of disturbed psychiatric adolescents.

In his letter to the Provincial at Christmas 1967, Fr Luca wrote: Well the ... case is ended as far as we are ... but not very satisfactorily from the Guards point of view. Mr Johnston is writing a letter now to the Department of Education to be placed in the Files beside the other Document and so I hope will be closed for good and all a rather nasty case. In the last stages of the case I had a call from the Dept. Inspector, Mr McDevitt about it and in passing he referred to the “Document of Accusation”. And then as a by the way he said he didn’t believe it. To which I replied “neither did I” but to make assurance doubly sure we had the allegation investigated by the Gardaí. And they were satisfied, without even a shadow of a doubt, that the whole thing was a malicious concoction. And furthermore, the Attorney General was even stronger in his condemnation of the affair. This took the Inspector a little by surprise for he never dreamt that we would have had it investigated. But he was very pleased to hear that we did take that course of action lest it should ever be brought up again. So when he gets the letter from Mr Johnston he will see that we meant to have every avenue checked & sealed.

Fr Luca was inaccurate in stating that ‘we had the allegation investigated by the Gardaí’. But, in fact, the Gardaí had brought the allegations to Fr Luca and they investigated them as part of the preparation for the criminal trial.