IRISH NATIONAL TO SEEK JUSTICE
BY ALEX P. VIDAL
Although no one has been prosecuted over the discoveries made by the Ryan Report, Iloilo-based Irish national Thomas Patrick Joseph "Tom" Doyle said he will continue to wage a legal battle against those responsible for abusing him when he was a child and thousands of other victims of child abuse in Ireland.
The Ryan Report on child abuse cases in Ireland has been tagged as "cover up" in an article written by Steve James for Social Affairs.
"My priority for the moment is to pursue the complaint I filed against the solicitor (government lawyer) that represented me (in my case against the Congregation of Christian Brothers, St. Mary's Province in Ireland)," Doyle, 75, said in an exclusive interview.
The solicitor, Peter McDonnell & Associates based in Dublin, allegedly did not help him get the compensation that he deserves as alleged victim of child abuse.
In his complaint which he plans to submit to the European Court, Doyle, now a resident of Zone 8 Calumpang, Molo, Iloilo City, alleged that he suffered physical and mental abuses and sufferings he "endured when I was a pupil at the Artane Industrial School in Dublin sometime in the years 1945 to 1946 and 1947 to 1953."
APPLIED
"I applied with the Residential Institution Redress Board for damages and was represented by the above mentioned Solicitor before the Board," read Dolye's complaint.
"Through my said Solicitor, the Residential Institution Redress Board offered an award of 60,500 Euro to me which said Solicitor advised me to accept. I instructed said Solicitor to reject the offered award as I believe the amount is too low to compensate me for all my sufferings.
"My said Solicitor however, despite my avowed manifestation that I will not accept the proposed award, sent me correspondents which make me feel that I am being intimidated and pressured to accept the proposed award. Worse, I received correspondence, dated 24th April 2007, from my Solicitor with an enclosed cheque in the sum of 60,500 Euro, which is the offered award, which is an utter defiance of my very instructions given them that is to reject the said offered award.
"It appears to me that my Solicitor, in accepting the award and sending me the cheque, against and contrary to my very instruction, is not working for and in my behalf and favour. I believe that I am not being properly represented by said Solicitors before the Board."
Doyle has been asking for his medical expenses, among other expenses for the "permanent disability" he allegedly suffered from the torture incidents. He wanted 80,000 euro.
REPRESENTATIVE
A representative of the Solicitor, Caitriona Cannon, had earlier informed Doyle that "the Redress Board shall not pay for any expenses for which receipts/invoices are not produced."
Cannon had asked Doyle to furnish them receipts/invoices "for medical conditions which occured as a result of your time in the school."
"A random figure on its own is not enough," Cannon told Doyle. "As already advised there will not be a second offer. You are now in a queue for a hearing date and I have requested money in advance for you to travel to Ireland for the hearing. I shall let you know as soon as I have a hearing date."
Doyle disputed Cannon on receipts/invoices saying he had already presented the "clinical case summary" report from his psychiatrist, Dr. Rowena G. Cosca of St. Paul's Hospital in Iloilo City which diagnosed him with "post traumatic stress disorder."
REPORT
In her report, Cosca stressed that when Doyle was about 9 and a half years old and studying religion at Artane Industrial School, "he was physically and emotionally abused by the religious brothers."
"He suffered injuries on most part of his bodies," reported Cosca. "He was not able to walk for a couple of months. There was no medical consultation because they kept the incident confidential. The abuse was repeated several times until he was 16 years old."
The psychiatrist observed that "after the abuse, patient was angry at the Catholic Church and refused to pray. He had repeated nightmares and flash backs even up to the present. Every time he had flashbacks, patient was irritable and had violent reaction. His irritability and violent tendencies had an effect to his job and wife. He wanted to shoot every priest he saw on the street. If he was not able to express his anger, the patient was anxious and restless. His wife had difficulty in controlling him after he had flashbacks."
"According to the Solicitor, I am not entitled to damages for my broken hip; but the Ryan Report says I'm entitled. There is a contradiction here," bewailed Doyle.
SUE
Doyle said he is suing the Solicitor for 6.6 million euro. He also wants 2 billion euros "as a lump sum payment for all the sufferings I got since I was a child," he said. "I will let the European Court decide on this. They might award me more."
The Solicitor, Doyle said, is representing about 20,000 other victims. Each of them is also entitled to millions in damages, he said, and the Redress Board has set aside billions of euros for payment of damages.
James, in his story entitled, "Irish child abuse: The Ryan report cover-up" reported that "For all the details of sadistic physical, sexual, emotional abuse, neglect and brutalization of children in Ireland's industrial school system, the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) is a cover up.
"Nine years of hearings, the probing of hundreds of childhood hells, have resulted in a huge report--five volumes and 3,000 pages--which will not lead to the prosecution of those individually or collectively guilty of crimes against thousands of children. Neither has political responsibility been attributed."
The report by Judge Sean Ryan reportedly continues to obscure the role of the Catholic Church, which is an essential element of the Irish state, "and successive governments in operating a cruel workhouse system through which at least 170,000 children passed through in the middle decades of the tweenteth century."
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