2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

The problems were compounded by Sr Callida’s reluctance to disengage from the Institution and the children in it: At first it was she would kind of meet the children coming home from school, just down the road and be speaking to them as they were coming up. She would just sit on the wall. Some of the young people would have felt uncomfortable about that. Another young person, a five year old girl, was being taken out by another nun, Sr Serena. At first what I was aware of, like, she had befriended this young person and would take her for a spin maybe once a week or once a fortnight, down ... to her family home. I subsequently found out that she was picking up Sr Callida on the way, they were meeting. So I had to put a stop to that as well, that access.

Sr Rosetta identified Sr Callida’s drinking problem as dating to an incident in which one of her residents was killed in an accident on his first day at work. He was 16 years old at the time, and his death had a severe impact on Sr Callida. Other Sisters who gave evidence to the Committee have also traced her alcohol dependency to this event that occurred in the late 1970s: It was the first of drinking that I heard was that the older boys who came back and knew him in St Michael’s and stayed in the group home, I heard there was drink flowing, but I couldn’t do much about it at that sensitive time. Seemingly it must have gone on from there, that was [the late 1970s], I don’t know which. I think that made an awful change in her life. Maybe I didn’t give her enough attention to help her over that or whatever. It was only looking back on it maybe I should have. The drink story went on from there.

Sr Rosetta confirmed that other members of the Community shared her concerns at Sr Callida’s drinking. Members of the public also voiced their concern: ‘Yes. Well, there was other people outside told us too about it’.

In addition, she heard reports within the Community: So I would have picked up a little bit from the leader in Cappoquin that there was some – a little concern around the possibility of drink in the childcare home.

When asked whether she had any concerns about the impact of Sr Callida’s behaviour on her ability to carry out her work, she said: Had I any concern? I suppose the answer to that is that I didn’t – because I had never seen it personally and I had never seen the effects of it and everything I was hearing, if you like, or seeing myself didn’t support the fact that it was affecting management or the home. So, I didn’t address that part of it then.

She did not take immediate action, but instead set about building trust with Sr Callida: my memory, would have been that if this is a concern then we need to build trust, to build a relationship, to come to some understanding of childcare, so that we can address the issue when we have more concrete evidence. So that was a deliberate decision that we took.

The emphasis, however, was all on Sr Callida and, by her own admission, Sr Viola did not talk to the staff or to the children during these visits. She did not identify the chronic problems that were causing such difficulties for the children and the staff there: I certainly would have felt that the place looked okay. The children looked okay. To me, I wouldn’t have had any immediate concerns at the time.

Sr Viola gave evidence that she had briefed Sr Serena on Sr Callida’s alcohol problem when she appointed her to Cappoquin, and had asked her to monitor the situation for her. Her evidence in this regard was vague, however: I would be very surprised if I didn’t. Because it was the thing that we had seriously tried to build. Liliana19 and myself had seen that as a concern and it was like please observe, please support, please build the relationship and keep in touch with us.

At first, Sr Serena felt she was resented by the children and by Sr Callida, who were still feeling the loss of Sr Melita. By degrees, however, she built a close relationship with Sr Callida: Yeah, the friendship between us developed. Yes, it took almost a year, I think, before – well, it took her a long time to warm to me, as well, because I think Sr Melita was a good friend of hers and I felt Callida probably missed her a lot. And it would have taken Callida a long time to get to know me as well. So, it didn’t happen overnight, it was a process over really the first year, I think. The first year.

After that first year, she began to spend more and more time with Sr Callida: Sometimes I went down – this is later on now when I got to know her quite well and we became quite friendly. We would go down and we would go out socialising, the two of us, away from Cappoquin. We would go out and have a drink or two. I would have a drink and so would she.

The two Sisters also went away for holiday weekends together: There were some weekends. With Sr Callida, yeah, there were some weekends that we went away. I remember – and I remember some of the children coming with us. Two or three weekends through the time that I was there. But not all of the children. There would be three or four children with us ... Well, the place I remember is [Kerry] ... [The hotel] had special – at least I was told they had special bargains, or whatever. So it was generally, as far as I remember it was [a] hotel in [Kerry], yeah. There were good weekends I thought. I thought they were good weekends.

Sr Serena conceded that it was unusual for a Sister in a Community to go away for the weekend with another Sister, ‘Well, you know, I know it wasn’t right. It wasn’t’.

As her relationship with Sr Callida developed, she became more compromised: As I got to know Sr Callida a bit better it began to interfere with my job as local leader. Because I felt within myself a great discomfort that I was not doing what I should have done. I felt sometimes as time went on, that I was living a lie and that made me extremely unhappy within myself. That is one of the huge difficulties, looking back on my time in Cappoquin, that is one of my great sorrows, that is why I asked the Community, especially on one occasion, when Cappoquin was closing down; I asked for their forgiveness, I felt I let them down. In fact, I felt I let everyone down, including Sr Callida and Viola.

Her ability to do her job was affected: Well, I suppose, I felt I compromised myself and therefore I didn’t have the freedom, maybe, to – let me think about that now. I sort of lost my independence and my right to be independent and, therefore, I really I felt I had no voice anymore and no authority over anything really, including the community. The community were extremely kind and very – I don’t know what they understood, I never asked them, but they were extremely accepting and forgiving, I suppose, and kind. But I was deeply unhappy within myself for a long time towards the end. For a long time. And I suppose, yeah, I was. That has lived with me ever since.

When asked what the sleeping arrangements were for the children that accompanied them on these weekends, she said that they all shared a family room: Well there were small double beds, so there would have been – if there were three or four of them they would have been two by two, two by two in the beds and Sr Callida and I would have shared the main bed. So we would have all been in the same room.