428 entries for Allegations

In the Crowley Report, Sr Venetia confirmed the allegations in respect of the tumble dryer. Sr Alida acknowledged to Mr Crowley about being confronted by a parent for threatening to place her daughter in the tumble dryer. In evidence, she said that a person had come to her to tell her that her child was afraid of the tumble dryer and advised her about it.

The Investigation Committee heard a number of allegations against lay workers who were employed in the Institution. There were three different categories of lay worker in Goldenbridge.

The ‘Dear Daughter’ programme was shown on RTE in February 1996, and it produced a massive response from the media and the public. Complaints were made to the Gardaí and an investigation followed, but there were no prosecutions. The Congregation was aware that the programme was being planned and that serious allegations would be made about how children had been treated in Goldenbridge. In advance of the screening of the programme, the Congregation decided to find out what it could about conditions in the Institution. One of the first things that it did was to commission a professional childcare expert to give an initial assessment of the allegations, and that inquiry gave rise to the first apology that the Sisters of Mercy issued in February 1996, following the screening of the programme.

The preliminary inquiry was undertaken by a senior social worker with the Western Health Board. His brief was to develop an assessment of the allegations being made regarding the care received by children in Goldenbridge in the 1950s and 1960s. Mr Crowley gathered information from the following sources: Transcript of the Gay Byrne interview with Ms Christine Buckley in 1993. A meeting with Mr Louis Lentin, the producer of the programme that was going to shown on RTE. A meeting with a former resident of Goldenbridge. Meeting with Sr Alida. Meeting with Sr Venetia. • Report and feedback from Sr Bettina17 on her interviews with former residents.

Mr Crowley approached his task in two ways. Firstly, he sought to establish and clarify the broad nature and patterns of the allegations being made. Secondly, he examined the information and carried out interviews, with a view to forming an independent professional assessment of the general nature of the care provided in Goldenbridge in the context of the allegations.

He identified four areas of complaint which were interrelated. They were physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect of children’s basic needs. Mr Crowley compiled a summary of allegations that were made about the regime: Physical Abuse 1.A constant pattern of physical abuse. 2.Severe beatings resulting in children being physically marked was the dominant form of discipline. 3.The beatings were carried out by a number of lay staff but most especially by Sr Alida. Beatings were so routine that they were witnessed by and colluded with by all members of staff. 4.Children were deprived of food. 5.Children were kept awake late into the evenings while awaiting physical punishments and were thus deprived of sleep. 6.Children were deprived of heating and warmth. 7.Children were routinely involved in inappropriate physical tasks connected with maintaining the establishment. 8.Some of the severe punishments were inflicted in circumstances in which there were sexual and humiliating elements including, for example, public and forceful removal of clothes before physical punishment. 9.Children were not clear as to why they were being beaten. 10.Children lived in constant fear of experiencing and witnessing physical abuse. Emotional Abuse 11.Routine derogatory references to the children’s background and to their parent’s behaviour. 12.Verbal abuse which combined with other interactions had the effect of reinforcing negative self images and damaging self confidence and feelings of worth. 13.Denial of appropriate recreation. 14.Imposing onerous responsibilities on children who were too young to carry them out, such as taking responsibility for the care of other children. 15.Public humiliation of children suffering from bed-wetting and soiling and making them display wet and soiled sheets publicly to other children. 16.Children were constantly in fear. 17.Children’s emotional needs were neither understood nor responded to. 18.Favouritism. 19.Deprivation was made worse for children when they saw some others being treated as pets and getting better treatment. Sexual Abuse 20.Children were exposed to sexually abusive experiences by befriending families and employers with whom they were placed. 21.No proper assessment or supervision or aftercare arrangements were made to prevent these abuses. 22.Some care practices reflected insensitivity to adolescent sexuality. 23.Two former residents alleged cases of specific sexual abuse, one by a male member of staff and one by two female members of staff. Neglect of Children’s Basic Needs 24.The total organisation of the children’s daily routine was contrary to their developing needs. 25.There was a failure at all levels to understand or meet their needs. 26.The general climate and regime were excessively harsh and abusive even by the standards of the time. 27.Expectations about children, for example, in relation to the length of time they were expected to concentrate or to stay silent or to work were not normal. 28.Particular forms of punishment, such as being left alone for hours in the furnace room, were particularly frightening for children who had experienced traumatic separations. 29.Generally, there was an absence of consistent and positive adults to whom supportive attachment could develop.

He interviewed Sr Alida and Sr Venetia, and put these allegations to them and noted their responses. The statements made by these two nuns are of real importance in the Inquiry because they come from people who worked in Goldenbridge over a combined period from 1942 until 1972.

Mr Crowley conducted a lengthy interview with Sr Venetia. She was in some physical pain and discomfort because of her medical condition during the course of the interview, but she had no obvious difficulties with memory. Mr Crowley observed that the allegations were weighing heavily on Sr Venetia and she presented as resigned to the process of being interviewed. It was evident to Mr Crowley that she wished to be honest and forthright, but this was complicated somewhat by ambivalence and conflicting loyalties. Mr Crowley was satisfied that she made every effort to be honest, but it was clear to him that she had some difficulty in discussing issues such as sexual abuse and, in general, she did not volunteer new information. He said ‘Sr Venetia communicated generally as being a somewhat fearful and isolated person.’

However, the Investigation Committee heard other complaints against this man. One complainant alleged that she had been raped by him. She alleged that the rape had taken place around 1960, when she was 11 years old, and two years before he was reported to the Gardaí. She said she did not report this incident to anyone in Goldenbridge, as she was afraid of being sent to a reformatory. The alleged incident occurred in a room off a dormitory where he was fixing a sash window and she was sent to assist him.

One witness, who did not herself allege abuse by the caretaker, said of him: It was common knowledge that Mr Hurley20 was at children in the laundry.

One witness spoke of being abused by a member of a family to whom she was sent out to at the weekend. This family, she felt, was not vetted. She says she was ‘fondled by an outsider’.

Another witness said she was abused by an uncle of a family she was sent to. She alleged that this occurred in the garden of the family’s home. She also referred to an incident of attempted rape by the son of another family she was sent out to in Dublin. She was left alone in the house with him, and he came into her bedroom and threw her on the bed and attempted to rape her.

A witness alleged that he was abused by a lay person who slept in the dormitory with the children. He stated: I was made to play with her for what seemed to go on for some time and whilst doing this I was in fear of the nuns catching me and if I was caught being out of bed I would get the strap or I would get a slapping or a beating. This went on for some time.

No reference is made to these allegations in the Opening Statement of the Sisters of Mercy. In their Submissions, however, they say that the ‘practice of having to show dirty underwear on a weekly basis is a puzzling one’. They add that: ... it is difficult to see what rational basis there might be for such a practice, except perhaps to check whether older girls might have started their periods, or checking the number on the underwear, or something of that nature. If so, it might have been done on an occasional basis but it would hardly have been a regular event for every girl.

The Sisters submitted that a number of complainants got these particular allegations wrong, and that they got them wrong in precisely the same way. They maintain that it is the ‘commonality of the memory errors that gives the clue to their importance’.